Sherbet Fountain
by Dollybelleol'whatserface
Summary: The Doctor wants a Sherbet Fountain and Rose can't get rid of her longing to be back in the 90's again. Cue, a trip back to 1997. Yet, when they see a 10yr old Rose being hurt by a gang of bullies, will the Doctor be able to control his temper?
1. Chapter 1

Sherbet Fountain

Chapter 1: A Strange Couple

**Disclaimer:** Characters belong to RTD and all sweets belong to their respective manufacturers, though I could really do with a _Wispa_ now. Ooh, and none of the magazines mentioned belong to me, either :)

**Author's Note:** This is what happens when 90's nostalgia kicks in. Ohh yes; I'm a 90's kid and I knew all the words to 'Wannabe'...I collected pogs...I watched SMTV:Live :) I wrote this after having Billie Piper's 'Girlfriend' stuck in my head for most of the day. Let me know what you think :)

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There had been the old man with the lisp; he came every day at about 8am for his morning papers, (the _Daily Mail_ usually) and a packet of wine gums. Then there had been the dark-haired woman who always seemed to be constantly tired and hung-over, who came in at about 8:30am for her usual packet of cigarettes, chewing gum and a _Diet Coke_ before running for the number 36 bus. Of course, with Jericho Street Primary and Comprehensive just around the corner there were a lot of school kids who came trailing into the small, quite dingy newsagents at about 8:45am, spending their pocket money on football stickers to swap at break time. They'd be back again at half-three, their school jumpers tied sloppily around their waists, slugging their bags behind them to buy sweets to devour on the way home…

The elderly, sometimes-grumpy shopkeeper remembered everyone who came into her newsagents; she knew most of her regulars by face and purchase if not by name and liked to keep a track of what time they came in, what they usually bought and whatnot. She had an excellent memory, and over the years she had been serving them she'd worked out a few things about her customers. For example; the latest the old man had ever come in had been 8:15. The tired, dark-haired woman never varied the flavour of the chewing gum she bought; it was always _Extra: Cool Breeze_, and the school kids never loitered around for longer than ten minutes at the most; and that business was slowest between the hours of 1:00pm and 2:00pm. No one came in over lunch. Never. Well, hardly ever, which meant that she often used to leave the counter unattended and retreat to the backroom to put her feet up with a cup of tea and watch repeats of _Neighbours_, only returning irritably to the front of the shop when she heard the tinkle of bell as someone came in.

One of the main reasons why she kept such a close record of the comings and goings of her customers was so that she'd notice if there was anything or anyone strange and mysterious because, these days…well, you couldn't be too careful, could you?

Today, the old man had bought a packet of pear drops along with his wine gums and his newspapers, and the dark-haired woman hadn't been in at all, yet that wasn't what had captured the shopkeeper's intrigue. No, today, what was unusual was the sudden appearance and strange behaviour of a tall, skinny man and a young blonde woman, who she'd never seen before. The woman in particular was very odd; though she sounded as if she was a local, she didn't seem familiar at all and kept on dashing from the magazine rack to the shelves of sweets, picking up children's comics and gabbling excitedly, grinning from ear to ear like a little girl at Christmas whilst the tall man watched her with amusement. He looked to be in his early thirties and would have seemed very over-dressed in his pinstriped suit and long brown trench coat, had he not been wearing white Converse, making him look curiously like a trendy Science teacher…if such a thing were at all possible.

"Look!" cried the blonde woman, excitedly, picking up a brightly coloured packet of sweets. "_Opal Fruits_! They're still called _Opal Fruits! _They haven't been changed to _Starburst_ yet!" she burbled fondly, thrusting the _Opal Fruits_ under the man's nose.

" Err, yes Rose; that's lovely, just put them back and keep your voice down." He glanced nervously towards the shopkeeper. "The shopkeeper's watching you," he warned her in a low voice.

The woman peered around the shelves towards the counter, where she saw an old, grey-haired woman in ridiculously big pink glasses and a blue tabard openly staring at her.

"Oh, let her watch…mad old bat. OOH! _Wispa's_!" she crowed cheerfully, turning her attention away from the woman as a blue rectangular bar bearing a red slogan caught her eye amongst the shelves of chocolate. "I haven't had one of those in _ages_," she enthused. "They stopped making them…mum was gutted," she told the tall man, picking up three of them and then racing around the stands to the magazine rack.

"Well they bring them back in 2007," the tall man grumbled, following her like a dutiful puppy.

" _Do_ they?" asked the woman, looking up at him from where she'd begun to pore over a selection of girlish-looking teenage magazines. "Ahh good!"

"Mmh," the man responded, watching her flick through a copy of _Smash Hits_ that had a picture of the Spice Girls splashed across the front cover. "Bit of a boring year, 2007, though."

"Oh," she said, distractedly, in the middle of reading an article on Hanson. "Think I'll buy this," she said brightly, rolling it up and then picking up a copy of _Mizz_ and _Girl Talk_. "And these…"

The tall man stared at her, open-mouthed. " What for?" he asked her incredulously. " You've got more than enough magazines lying on your bedroom floor…I should know, I slipped on a copy of _Heat_ this morning and spilt tea down my shirt!"

"Then you should look where you're going," she told him, sidestepping round him and making her way back over to the shelves of sweets and crisps.

"But…but…" protested the tall man, seemingly at loss for words. "Those are out of _date_," he whined, joining her in front of a stand displaying _Milky Ways_. "What's the point in buying them if they're out of date? _And _they're for pre-teens anyway, why do _you _want them?"

The blonde woman raised her eyebrows (which were surprisingly, quite dark in contrast to her blonde hair) at him, unimpressed at his complaints. "I used to love reading _Smash Hits _and _Girl Talk_ when I was about nine-ish," she said reproachfully, rearranging the magazines and the _Wispa_'s in her hands as she crouched down to survey the bottom shelf. " Ooh _Love Hearts_ she mumbled to herself," picking up two packets.

"But you're not nine," he pointed out, taking the _Wispa_'s out of her hands as she looked to be in great danger of dropping them all over the floor.

"Really?" she replied, sarcastically, rolling her eyes at him. "They're for nostalgic purposes…old times sake and all that," she told him, primly. "You used to be able to get free nail kits sellotaped to the front and everything…look," she waved _Girl Talk_ at him, which offered a heart-covered nail file as a free gift and featured _"How to make groovy friendship bracelets" _across the front.

"Well, as long as you promise to paint my nails and make me a err _'groovy' _friendship bracelet later…" he commented dryly, following her to the counter with his hands shoved into the pockets of his coat.

"Oh shut up," she said fondly, smiling at him over her shoulder.

"Make me," he retorted, winking at her and giving the old woman behind the counter a wide smile, who glared back at him, stonily. "Just these, please," he prompted; pushing the _Wispa_'s towards her as the blonde woman dropped the magazines and _Love _Hearts on the counter. "Annnd," he mused as she began to scan in the items. "Four sherbet fountains please, if you have any?"

"Four?" repeated the blonde woman disbelievingly. " What do we need _four_, for?"

"I like four," said the man nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders as the crotchety old shopkeeper sighed heavily and reached down beneath the plastic-topped counter and brought out four orangey-red paper cylinders with sticks of black liquorice sticking out of the twisted tops. " There were four Beatles…four seasons…the Fantastic Four…"

"Riiight," said the blonde woman slowly, obviously deciding to humour him. "But if you're sick after eating four sherbet fountains I'll have no sympathy…I'll just stand there and laugh," she told him warningly.

"You wouldn't,"

"I would."

The young couple pretended to glare at each other, before cracking out into identical toothy grins. At least, the shopkeeper _assumed_ they were a couple. They looked nothing alike and so couldn't possibly be brother and sister, and were far too familiar with each other to be just friends. Yes; a young, unmarried couple, the shopkeeper decided, noting the absence of any rings on the woman's left hand.

Unhurriedly, the shopkeeper carried on scanning their purchases; putting them in a pink and white striped plastic bag as the tall man began to drum his fingers on the counter slightly impatiently, before the blonde woman clamped her hand over his to make him stop...thankfully.

There was a loud tinkling of a bell amongst the beeps of the till and the quiet lilt of the radio playing in the back room, and as the shopkeeper looked up warily, she felt her shoulders slump ever so slightly. If _those_ boys were coming in, in all their shell-suited splendor, then it must be about 3:35pm ish…the schools must have just been let out…

The shopkeeper clucked her tongue; she didn't like these boys at all. True, they were still at Jericho Street Primary; in their last year by the looks of it but they were absolutely _foul_. They were, rude, loud; they intimidated the other customers, shouting and swearing at them. They spat on the floor, never said please or thank you and had dirty fingernails. Only yesterday she'd seen who she supposed was their ringleader; a great, hefty boy with a pudding hair cut, chase a small, tearful brown-haired girl down the street, pelting her with stones. Poor mite.

"Sherbet fountain," ordered the ringleader, trudging up to the counter, his rat-faced cronies hanging behind him.

"They're still being served, thank you," rasped the shopkeeper sharply, with a crow-like voice, gesturing at the tall man and the blonde woman. "Wait your turn."

The pudding haired boy gave the tall man a disdainful look up and down; as if he was something he'd trod on with the bottom of his shoe, seeming not to care that the man was twice his height. The tall man though didn't seem fazed and glared down his rather long nose right back at him, as if he were a mere annoyance.

The blonde woman, on the other hand, had gone very pale and was staring determinedly down at the counter, holding her shoulders stiff; anxious not to look in the boy's direction or to catch his eye in any way.

"Here," she said shakily, her voice sounding very hoarse as she fumbled in her denim jacket pocket and pushed a pink, cracked leather purse into the tall man's chest. "See you outside," she mumbled, pulling the sleeves of her jacket down over her hands as she made a beeline for the door, almost tripping over in her haste to get out of the small, cramped newsagents.

The tall man gazed down at the purse in his hands, holding it limply as if the woman had just given him a flesh-eating spider.

"Wha-?" he stared after her, looking confounded.

"Seven pounds ninety," the shopkeeper told him, holding out an ink-stained hand to accept the money.

The tall man gave her a preoccupied glance, like a schoolboy caught day-dreaming in lessons, barely even looking at the paper notes as he extracted ten pounds from a handful of receipts, bus tickets and photo booth snapshots crammed inside the card-holder bit of the woman's purse. "Just…keep the change," he said vaguely, collecting the carrier bag from the counter and almost running out of the newsagents after his blonde companion.

"Rose?" he called, wrenching open the creaking door and dashing out into the pavement, looking around worriedly for the blonde woman as he was jostled by crowds of Jericho Street Comprehensive students walking in packs through the narrow streets.

Looking out of the grimy, poster-filled shop window, advertising car boot sales and weight-loss clinics, the shopkeeper saw that the tall, skinny man managed to catch up with the blonde woman as he rounded the corner beside the post office, catching a hold of her arm and quite forcefully, swinging her round to face him, his face the picture of concern and confusion.

Then, the shopkeeper couldn't see anymore, as the impatient group of boys had sidled up to the counter and were staring at her menacingly, blocking her view of the odd couple.

"Sherbet fountain," repeated the pudding haired ringleader with a sly smile at his thick-looking friends on either side of him. "Actually, make that two," he sneered; a nasty, threatening look playing darkly across his potato-like face.

Goodness. Why had sherbet fountains suddenly got so popular? First the tall, skinny man had bought four, now this bullyboy was buying two…personally she couldn't see the attraction of dipping a stick of liquorice into a bag of bitter, powdery-white sherbet. Far too...messy.

Nevertheless, she obediently bent down and brought out two sherbet fountains; slapping them down bad-temperedly onto the counter.

"These for the Tyler girl?" guffawed a gormless-looking boy wearing a back-to-front baseball cap pulled down over his forehead as the first boy threw a handful of coins at the shopkeeper, without waiting to be told the price and slouched out of the shop, looking for all the world like an under-grown gorilla.

" Yeah," said the boy, his lip curling as he clenched the two sherbet fountains in his meaty fist. "She didn't like her stone shower yesterday. Let's see if she'll still scream for her mummy when we pour sherbet in her eyes, shall we? Powell Estate cow..."


	2. Chapter 2

Sherbet Fountain:Chapter 2

All Night Café

**Disclaimer:** Nothing is mine, unfortunately. Again, I refer to _Harry Potter_ in this story, which I've done in two of my others...can you tell I'm a fan? Apologies if you dislike the Boy Wizard; obviously he belongs to JK. Rowling. E.T isn't mine either, nor is _Pretty Woman, _although I do have the DVD :) What else have I referred to? _Munchies_ belong to Nestle...I think

**Author's Note:** This story has a rather unusual structure, if I'm being honest. Rather than carrying on where I left off with an insight into a group of boys being awful to a young Rose, I've taken a bit of a back-pedal; this shows how the Doctor and Rose ended up in the 90's in the first place. A look at young Rose will come in Chapter 3, I hope that's OK? Please, enjoy. Let me know what you think. Finally, if I may, I'd like to dedicate this to everyone who's just taken/is sitting their exams, seeing as mine are now finished :)

* * *

The Doctor surveyed Rose over his cup of tea with barely disguised amusement, his eyes crinkling.

"What?" asked Rose, looking up from where she was drawing patterns in the spilt sugar in the table with her finger, conscious that he was staring at her.

"Nothing," he said, grinning widely and leaning back in his chair so that he was resting on only two legs.

"_What_?" repeated Rose more urgently, feeling slightly uncomfortable, as if he were laughing at her at her own expense.

"Seriously, nothing," the Doctor reassured her, holding his hands up, seeing that his scrutiny was causing her to blush. "I was just wondering…which one was your favourite?"

"My favourite what?" asked Rose, nonplussed. " Cheese? Alien? Film?"

"_Spice _Girl," said the Doctor, as if she were being deliberately stupid, "You've been sitting there for the past ten minutes, making pictures with spilt sugar, humming 'Wannabe' under your breath, and I was just wondering because…well the subject of half-alien, brain-numbing, annoyingly cheesy girl bands is one we haven't quite got round to, surprisingly enough."

" I wasn't, was I?" asked Rose with some mortification, raising a hand to her mouth, her eyes shining in embarrassment. "Ohh my life, I _was_," she hooted, as she realised that she _had_ unconsciously been humming the old pop song that she'd known all the words to when she was younger. A lot younger. That had to excuse it, didn't it?

"Erm, I didn't have a favourite," she fibbed, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, not looking at the Doctor in the eye.

"Lying," said the Doctor in a singsong voice, laughing as Rose shook her head and emptied an entire packet of sugar into the last dregs of her now-cold tea. "Come on, you're a girl and you grew up in the 90's ergo you loved the Spice Girls and had a favourite that you unfortunately aspired to be like when you grew up," he teased her.

Rose snorted. "Yeah; that certainly happened for me, didn't it? I've ended up just like Emma Bunton," she said, sarcastically, laughing and twisting the empty sugar packet around in her fingers.

"Ahh, so Baby was your favourite?"

"Yep, I used to ask my mum to do my hair in half bunches at the top of my head, like hers," remembered Rose with a smile, pulling her blonde hair into two small handfuls to demonstrate. "I must've looked a right state!"

"Bit like now, then," said the Doctor jokingly.

"Watch it," she said warningly, reaching over to steal the crusts of his toast that he always left at the side of his plate.

He was right though; she did look a mess. The night before she and the Doctor had been invited, (well perhaps 'invited' wasn't the correct word; 'gate crashed with the aid of Psychic paper' seemed more appropriate) to some fancy, upper-class gala in the year 2011 to celebrate the launch of a new piece of revolutionary technology which, according to the Doctor, shouldn't have been readily available to humans till at least 2089.

Of course, that was his and Rose's cue to interfere, cause merry hell in the queue for the shrimp canapés, insult the host, blow up the Ladies toilets with an air freshener and sonic screwdriver, insult the host some more and errr uncover the inventor of said revolutionary piece of technology to be a bidermitologic alien from the planet Sotret.

So…just a normal adventure, really. No one had died or was taken hostage, (which was a bonus, considering Rose's track record) and the Doctor had even managed to invent a new cocktail, much to his pleasure.

Now though, they were sat at a wobbly table in the far corner of a rather grotty all-night café in the west end of London, and had been sitting there for the best part of an hour, munching on stale toast washed down with weak tea. Rose's hair, which about nine hours before had been set in elaborate, soft curls now looked tatty and unkempt, as if someone had dragged her through a hedge backwards. The hem of her satin cocktail dress had ripped and was fraying around her legs and the bodice had a suspicious-looking rusty red stain sloshed down it. Somewhere along the line she had taken off her shoes and slung them under the table, as deep red welts criss-crossed her feet, where the straps of her high heels had been digging in.

The Doctor, to be quite honest didn't look that much better. He had a wide graze just beneath his left eyebrow, which was bleeding pathetically and his tuxedo suit was all rumpled and dirty, (the jacket of which he had graciously wrapped around Rose's shoulders, despite her protests that she was 'alright, honestly') The Doctor had just looked pointedly at the goose bumps spattered across her arms and chest and said nothing.

Still, despite her blistered feet and bedraggled appearance it was quite nice to be able to just sit and talk about…anything and everything and not have to worry about saving a planet or running for their lives.

Apart from a bleary-eyed lorry driver, who was downing shots of espresso at the near table, and a filthy-looking drunk near the door, who was half sprawled across his table, a fresh pool of vomit at his feet, the Doctor and Rose were the only customers. At 3 o'clock in the morning though, that probably wasn't surprising.

"Your head ok?" Rose asked him, nodding concernedly at the gash on his head.

The Doctor gingerly raised a hand to his forehead. "I'll survive," he told her, putting on a mock-brave face. "To be knocked out another day by another blibbering waiter with a cast-iron drinks tray and mush for brains."

"I thought he looked a bit like Orlando Bloom," said Rise absent-mindedly, staring out of the window at the inky-black sky and deserted street.

The Doctor gave a loud 'Harrumph!' and muttered something which sounded a lot like 'an alien if I ever saw one,' and got to his feet, draining the last of his tea in one go.

"Come on then, Miss. Tyler," he cajoled her, offering her his arm. "Your carriage awaits!"

"By 'carriage' you mean big blue box?" asked Rose, wryly struggling to stand as she attempted to wedge her swollen, aching feet back into her shoes.

"Same thing," commented the Doctor, watching her attempting to fasten her shoes. "Rose, what are you doing?"

"Trying to put my shoes on!"

"Yes, but Rose," said the Doctor matter-of-factly. "Your feet are the size of Christmas puddings. You'll never get them on. In fact, monkey's have more chance of splitting the atom than you have of putting your shoes back on."

"Well, how else am I going to get back to the TARDIS?" she said crossly. "Levitate?"

The Doctor grinned down at her, a dangerous glint in his eye. A glint that Rose knew meant 'I've just had a ridiculous idea that you will hate but let's do it anyway 'cause it'll be funny.'

"No," Rose told him sternly, misinterpreting the glint. "We're not stealing another golf cart."

The last time The Doctor and Rose had been stranded somewhere they'd 'borrowed' a golf cart from a man with a weather-beaten face, had crashed into a dozen lampposts, nearly knocked over an old lady doing her gardening and had 'forgotten' to return it. All the while laughing themselves silly, of course.

"Where're you going to get a golf cart from in the middle of London at 3 o'clock in the morning?" he asked her, incredulously, his voice going slightly high. "No, no, no; what I was going to say was that I could give you a piggy-back if you want?"

"Don't be daft!"

"Why not?"

Rose considered him for a moment. She was wearing a dress; a piggy-back was going to be difficult and plus, she'd look very ungainly and of course, she was worried about how heavy she was but then…her feet _were_ killing.

"Ok," she said carefully. "If you're sure you don't mind?"

"Nah, I baby-sit," retorted the Doctor, giving her an enthusiastic smile before turning round and bending down slightly so that she could wrap her arms around his neck. "Just get on."

With a grunt of effort, the Doctor stood up straight and grabbed a hold of Rose's legs, just behind her knees, before the pair of them burst into nervous giggles.

"How much chips have you been eating?" he grumbled, jiggling her so that he had a tighter hold, earning himself a smack on the arm.

Bumping into rickety tables, the Doctor and Rose rather awkwardly made their way out of the café, attracting raised eyebrows from the chain-smoking waitresses.

"I don't know," mused Rose good-naturedly, the chilly night air hitting them, whipping their hair around their faces as they got outside. "First you gave me your jacket, now you're giving me a piggy-back," she said shaking her head, her warm breath tickling the back of the Doctor's neck. "You're becoming _quite_ the gentleman."

"I know, it's disgusting isn't it?" said the Doctor, happily.

As he turned a corner and walked down a quiet street, full of semi-detached houses with broken windows and tangles of graffiti scrawled across the brickwork, Rose suddenly realised how tightly she was wrapped round him. Her face was pressed into his untidy mop of soft hair, which smelt of shampoo and caramel and all…Doctor-ish, and with her clasped hands resting on his chest, she could feel its soft rise and fall as he breathed in and out.

"Rose?" asked the Doctor slowly, as if he had been pondering something for a long time and a thought had finally occurred to him.

"Mmh?" she replied, resting her chin on his shoulder, comfortably.

"What makes you think I don't know what your favourite cheese is?" he piped up, acknowledging her movement by leaning his head against hers for a brief second.

"You what?" asked Rose, completely nonplussed. "Favourite cheese? What?"

"Just before, when I asked you which one was your favourite, you said 'Favourite what…cheese?' Yes?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, why would I have to ask you what your favourite cheese is, when I already know?" he puzzled, sounding mildly put out.

"Do you?" asked Rose, her eyebrows knitting together, surprised. She couldn't remember ever discussing something as random as cheese with the Doctor. Still…there was a first time for everything. Cheese talk Brilliant

"I didn't think I had a favourite," she said truthfully, grinning down at him as he tightened his grip around her legs.

"Well, you do," the Doctor informed her, kicking an empty can as he crossed the road, causing an almighty clatter in the quiet night. Well, early morning really. "It's stilton," he said, proudly.

"Oh yeah…"

"Annnd seeing as you mentioned it, I also happen to know exactly what your favourite alien and film is."

"Go on, then," Rose prompted him, waiting to see what nonsense he would come up with.

"Your favourite _alien_ is E.T," he carried on, and although Rose couldn't see to be sure, she knew that the Doctor had rolled his eyes. "And unfortunately, your favourite film is _Pretty Woman_."

"Nope," said Rose, smiling widely.

"What do you mean 'no'? You were quoting from it the other day! Blabbering on about corners and rails…"

"No no no, I mean, yeah _Pretty Woman_ is my favourite film," she said, giving him a light kick with her bare heel. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, either but no, my favourite alien's not E.T."

"Oh," said the Doctor dejectedly, as if she had deliberately tricked him. "What is it then? The Zygons? Not the Gelth?"

"No, I'm not saying," she said, hugging him to her for warmth because yes, she would admit it…she was very cold and the night air was slightly damp and…well, she just liked holding onto the Doctor. It felt safe and comforting and…nice? Oh 'nice' was an awful word but still, she liked hugging the Doctor. Probably more than she should.

"Oh come on, tell me," he whined, tilting his head back so that he could look at he properly.

"No!" Rose said, smugly. "Work it out, Clouseau."

"Fine, I will," replied the Doctor, huffily. " You know, I met Clouseau, once? Mad as a March hare. Used his tie as toilet roll and kept soil in his shoes."

Rose made a disbelieving noise. She knew the Doctor was a brilliant man, beyond brilliant in fact; she'd be the first person to admit to his intellect and sheer charm and announce it to the half-listening universe if she had to, but there were times when she just wasn't sure where she stood with him, whether to take him seriously or not. Only last week they'd been talking about Julie Andrews, (as you do) when he'd matter-of-factly stated that it had been him who had first coined the word 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' yet he'd just never wanted to take the credit. Which seemed ridiculous, but knowing the Doctor, could be true. It was hard to tell which of his throwaway, nonsense comments should be taken seriously and which shouldn't. 'I met Clouseau' was no exception.

"Clouseau wasn't real, was he?" Rose asked skeptically, speaking into the Doctor's hair as they came to the end of the dark street. At the corner, before the roads trundled into the run-down estate there was a children's playground. The chains from the swings had broken and lay on the ground amongst shards of shattered glass; the metal slide was caked in mud and had rude words, insults and mobile numbers scrawled all over it in thick black marker; and everything else; the see-saws, the roundabout, and the climbing frame had collapsed in a heap of coloured wood and rusty paint-covered metal.

" Course he was real!" said the Doctor, sounding highly affronted. "Well the character's not; of course he's not, but the lunatic the character was based on was very real…bit of a sandwich short of a picnic, though."

"Who was the real man he was based on?" asked Rose, the theme to the _Pink Panther_ sneaking into her head.

"An inspector from the 40's," the Doctor told her, knowledgably. "A police inspector; an English man. Not sure where the French bit came from actually, but he was yeah…very real. Very stupid."

"Did he die?" asked Rose, not sure if she wanted to know the answer, fiddling with a fine, loose thread on his shoulder.

"Oh yes, he died," the Doctor said grimly." Lopped two tablespoons of cyanide into his lemonade because he thought it was sherbet."

Rose flinched, sucking in air through her teeth and screwing up her face, as if the very thought of it pained her. "Ow…nasty. Poor him."

"Yeah," agreed the Doctor, morosely, his voice sounding very hollow.

The pair of them fell into a shared, silence, although it was not an uneasy one; they were both just reflecting on the Doctor had said. Thankfully, they knew each other well enough to know when they needed to ponder something, to be left to their own thoughts and not talk to one another. For a good five minutes, neither of them said anything but Rose became unconsciously aware that she was holding on to him tighter than was strictly necessary. But then, the Doctor was doing the same to her so…fair and square, really.

"Rose," said the Doctor, thoughtfully after a while. "Do you know what I _want_? What I 'really, really want'?" he quipped, remembering her hummed song from before with a slight grin.

" A 'zig-a-zig-ah'?" suggested Rose, mock-innocently, cottoning on to the fact that he was gently teasing her about her choice of song.

"Nope," he said with a maddening, full-watt Doctor Smile. " I _want_ a Sherbet Fountain!" he revealed, sounding like an excited child. "Right now, really I could just do with a Sherbet Fountain."

"What?" she squeaked, sounding utterly flummoxed, her brown eyes lighting up in amusement. "Why on earth do you want a Sherbet Fountain? Actually, scratch that. Why on earth do you want a Sherbet Fountain at 3 o'clock in the morning when you've just had toast?"

"Ngh," said the Doctor, by way of reply. Obviously he was unable to come up with anything more satisfactory. " I just…thinking about old Clouseau and his cyanidey sherbet…it made me want a Sherbet Fountain. They're all…sherbety."

"Nooo?" said Rose sounding sarcastically incredulous. "Sherbet Fountains are all 'sherbety'? Well!"

"Ahhh shush, Miss. Sarcastic Wit 2011. I'm very fond of Sherbet Fountains."

"You would be," replied Rose. "I used to go to the newsagents after school every Friday and buy sweets to have on the way home. I always bought _Munchies_," she said wistfully. "The _one_ time I bought a Sherbet Fountain I picked at it for about ten minutes till the paper got all soggy and I got brown sticky marks all over my hands and the sherbet went brown and started clumping together…then I gave it to Mickey."

"_Why_?" asked the Doctor. "Why don't you like Sherbet Fountains? They're brilliant! Honestly, the sweets you lot come up with! You get a stick of liquorice and you dip it into a little paper tube of sherbet and lick it off…. it's genius! You know, nowhere else in the universe has Sherbet Fountains?"

"Lucky us," mumbled Rose. "I don't know, I just don't like Sherbet Fountains, is that a crime?"

It came out sharper than she'd intended it to. She hadn't meant to snap at him, but Sherbet Fountains were something she was very tetchy about. They brought back bad memories from her childhood. Memories of being chased home by a thuggish group of boys; of being taunted for the fact that she had no father and lived on the Powell Estate; of having her chair kicked at school; of crying in the toilets during lunchtime, scrubbing her face with the brown, scratchy paper towels.

"Sorry," she said quietly, playing with a tuft of his hair absent-mindedly, twisting it up into a spike and then smoothing it down again. "Bad experience with a Sherbet Fountain."

"Ah yes; they can be devilish little blighters," remarked the Doctor knowingly, attempting to make light of her surliness. Somehow, he'd obviously sensed that she didn't want to talk about it and so he wasn't going to press her further; for which she was very grateful. She had a flighty, fanciful feeling that the Doctor probably knew her better that either of them would care to admit.

"Next time we're in the Vortex," said the Doctor wryly, after a small silence as they neared an empty car park full of abandoned supermarket trolleys, crisp burnt out shells of cars that had obviously been set alight, empty vodka bottles and piles of mirrors and razor blades strewn all over the ground like lethal confetti, but with a familiar blue wooden box tucked away between an overflowing skip and a bottle bank. "I'm chucking you out in an airlock."

"Why?" asked Rose stiltedly. She was used to his playful threats and regarded them with cautious amusement rather than real worry. The fact of the matter was; the Doctor was about as capable of throwing her out in an airlock as Rose was of standing on her head, reciting _War and Peace_ in Urdu whilst playing the piano with her toes. Not capable at all.

"Because you've got the Spice Girls stuck in my head," he told her shortly. "And that's not a very nice thing to do. You have no compassion for my sanity."

"What little of it you have left!" Rose laughed as they drew closer to the TARDIS, loose stones and broken glass crunching under his feet as he walked.

"Admittedly, yes; it has dwindled rapidly ever since you started traveling with me," he assured her, seriously.

"Cheers," said Rose, as he stopped in front of the TARDIS, cautiously loosening her hands from around his neck.

"Which pocket's your key in?" she asked, realising that she would have to be the one to open the door, seeing as the Doctor had his hands a bit full. Holding her legs, actually.

"I don't know," he said, unhelpfully. "Use yours!"

"There's no pockets in a cocktail dress," Rose told him frankly, sticking her hand into the left pocket of the Doctor's tuxedo jacket, which she still had around her shoulders. Her hands brushed all manner of strange, unidentifiable objects; smooth, shiny surfaces, rough pellets, spindly instruments, bus tickets, bananas, books, tea bags…

"Then where's your TARDIS key? Do you not have it with you?" he asked her, sounding alarmed and ever so slightly reproachful. "I thought I told you to always have it with you?"

"I _do_ have it with me," Rose retorted vaguely, only half paying attention as she switched to try another of his seemingly endless pockets.

"Where is it then, if you have no pockets?" he asked, confused.

"You don't want to know," she told him. Oh fantastic. This pocket was full of crumbly biscuits, a torch, a water gun, and a tube of toothpaste, old invitations, ancient coins and a small silver key.

This, she drew out carefully and inserted into the rusty lock of the TARDIS, wiggling it about expertly. The TARDIS was old and temperamental. You had to have a certain knack to be able to open it; even then though, the TARDIS would only cooperate if she felt like it. Fortunately, tonight she allowed her doors to be opened straight away; perhaps because she was fed up of being parked in such a dodgy area. Whatever the reason, Rose was very glad because as much as she'd enjoyed her piggy back; walking through a less than pleasant area of future London at 3 o'clock in the morning clinging on to the Doctor, teasing and laughing with him; she was very cold and no matter how well she tried to stifle a yawn, very tired.

The homey, familiar smell of the TARDIS and the soothing hum of its walls were particularly welcoming tonight as they went in, the Doctor stooping, his gangly frame folding so that Rose didn't bump her head on the doorframe. Which was very nice of him. Rose loved the smell of the TARDIS; it smelt old and dusty and comforting, yet there was also an undercurrent of engine oil and burning electricity. It reminded her of museums and old churches; which was the smell of Time, according to the Doctor. He was adamant that Time had a smell. 'Why would it not?' he'd stressed. Most of all, though, she probably loved the TARDIS because it reminded her of the Doctor. The Doctor and his beloved TARDIS were inextricably linked. It was hard to imagine the Doctor without his blue box, or to think of anyone else manning the console…

"Here we are," called the Doctor cheerfully. "Back again."

Almost regretfully, he let go of Rose's legs, so she could slide down to the floor; quite ungracefully actually, but that didn't matter. Rose almost whimpered as she detached herself from him; it was as if her favourite teddy bear had been taken away.

"Thanks for the lift," she said, smiling widely up at him. "Better than a taxi any day!"

"Mmh," replied the Doctor. "Taxi's are warmer. You look like an ice sculpture."

He paced around the center console until he found a beige-brown, thick woolen blanket, which was wide and long enough to be the main sail of the _Flying Dutchman_. Well, nearly. This, he threw at Rose, deftly, who wrapped it around her shoulders like a cloak and sat herself in the squeaky captain's chair, tucking her chilled feet underneath her and pulling the blanket down over her knees.

"We had a good night, didn't we?" said Rose happily, as the Doctor came and sat beside her, his long legs resting on the console. "We stopped an acne-ridden alien from taking control of the planet, blew up a loo, got free food, no one died _and_ you got to swan around the place pretending to be James Bond in your snappy tuxedo!"

"_And_ that thick waiter asked you for your number," the Doctor reminded her, staring at his outstretched feet, though Rose couldn't tell whether he sounded amused or displeased about this. She turned sideways so she could study his chiseled, angular profile but his expression was impassive.

"Oh yeah," said Rose, remembering the devastatingly good-looking but slightly slow waiter who had taken an obvious shine to her and asked for her mobile number…just before he'd stepped backwards, slipped on an ice-cube and knocked a thoroughly bad-tempered Doctor out with his drinks tray.

"Did you give it to him, by the way?" asked the Doctor curiously, still resolutely staring at his shoes.

Rose gave a mischievous grin and twirled a strand of hair around her finger, purposefully dodging his question and inching closer to him so she could rest her head tiredly on his shoulder.

"Definitely not a bad night," she said, yawning.

"_Did_ you?" asked the Doctor sharply; shrugging her off him so he could look at her properly; intense brown eyes seeking hers. Rose faced him, her easy smile fading. A strange, indefinable look passed over the Doctor's face; he looked genuinely interested in her answer, yet resigned at the same time, and there was something flickering behind his eyes. Was he…could he be faintly jealous? Or just fiercely protective of her? She gazed at him, unsurely. Mutely, she shook her head, trying to understand why she felt vaguely disappointed when the Doctor broke their intent look and rearranged his features into an expression that was obviously supposed to be casual indifference.

"Good," he said lightly. "Didn't look intelligent enough to be able to use a mobile phone, anyway. Come on," he said leaping to his feet, with all the coiled energy of a Jack in the Box. "I will escort you to your bedroom young miss."

Rose shot him a baleful stare, like a cat who had been lazing in the sun on a hot summers day that had been told to move. "I'm not going anywhere," she told him, rearranging herself in the chair so that she was in a more comfortable position. "My legs refuse to move and I am far too comfy to care. A fleet of Daleks _and_ my mum in a temper couldn't get me to go to bed, so you're certainly not going to make me."

The Doctor looked down at his fatigued, stubborn companion, at her messy hair falling down over her face, her eyes sleepy and soft. She always managed to look extraordinarily young when she was tired; like a little girl rather than the headstrong, independent young woman he was used to.

"Fine," he gave in, his lip curling into an amused smile as he sat back down again and stretched his arm out to her so she could loll against his shoulder. "I will once again consent to be your pillow," he said heavily. "But if you start snoring…"

"I know, I know. You'll hold my nose and put a cactus in my mouth or something," said Rose sleepily, settling herself against him.

"Well I will!" he promised her, his eyes glinting as she brushed her hair out of her face and rearranged her blanket.

Rose said nothing, allowing her eyelids to close, but she didn't go to sleep, enjoying the feel of the Doctor's warm arm pressed against her cheek.

"Rose?" said the Doctor, moving so that she fitted more snugly into the crook of his neck, under his arm; her wispy hair tickling her face. "How does 1997 sound to you?"

"1997? What about it?"

" Taking you back to the 90's? 1999 was a good year but 1997? Height of the Spice Girls' popularity! A time when no one knew who Britney Spears was…when cheese pop reigned! Tell you what, June/July-ish 1997, just after Tony Blair became Prime Minister and just before _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ was first published…we can just waltz in and buy it! Imagine! Not having to queue for a _Harry Potter_ book with a group of over-obsessive teenage girls in hand painted T-shirts! Rose, we've got to go!"

Rose sat up, taking in his excited expression and bright shiny eyes and positively beamed back at him.

"Yeah! Yeah, that sounds great! _Love_ to," she said, squeezing his arm, looking a bit perkier but still absolutely shattered; her face had paled with tiredness and her eyes were all droopy.

"I could even buy a Sherbet Fountain!" he exclaimed, moving as if to set the coordinates immediately, but upon seeing Rose's baggy eyes he seemed to change his mind. "After you've been to _sleep_ first, though," he told her, shaking his head half-fondly, half-exasperatedly. "Honestly, you and your human lot have an unhealthy need to snooze off to the Land of Nod every other hour, how do you stand it? I tried going to sleep once…didn't think it was much cop. You just…"

"Doctor?" Rose interrupted him tiredly.

"Yes, Rose?"

Rose kept her eyes closed but raised her right hand up towards him, fingers straight, as if she were a traffic warden commanding him to stop in his impromptu rant. "Talk to the hand," she giggled, weakly.

"What?" he said, looking at her hand, warily. "Talk to your hand? It'd be quite worrying if I got a reply…"

"No, no. It was an expression that was knocked about in the 90's! Everyone said it, whenever they didn't want to listen to what someone had to say…Mickey said it all the time. It annoyed me so much I whacked him with my packed lunch box!" she said groggily. "Everyone had plastic lunchboxes with stickers on them! And Jellies! Ohhh I had a pink, glittery pair…" she burbled, her voice fading as sleep began to finally claim her.

The Doctor decided that it was probably best not to ask her what 'Jellies' were. Half asleep though she was, she was still muttering incomprehensible nonsense under her breath. He picked up the words 'Wonky Donkey' and 'Mr. Postman' before he gave up on trying to make sense out of what she was saying. Wonky Donkey? And she told _him_ he was barking…

He sat still for a moment, as her snuffly breathing grew deep and steady, looking fondly down at his sleeping best friend. She had forgotten to take her make-up off again, he noted as he glanced down at her spiky eyelashes, which were clumped together with too much mascara, and her powdery foundation which was beginning to wear off too, revealing small pink spots dotted in and around her hairline. Her lips still bore traces of the glossy lipstick she'd been wearing, but the cold night air had left them looking dry and cracked. Her nose, he noticed was decorated with both freckles and the occasional blackhead, which he hadn't really picked up on before because they'd never been in quite such close proximity. Not consciously anyway. He'd never been able to openly stare at her, to study her face as if committing it to memory; they were both too self-conscious for that.

A small niggling at the back of his mind told him that watching her as she slept, all curled up against him was a bit too intimate, and he felt a small shiver of embarrassment creep over him. Pulling on his ear uncomfortably, he wrapped the blanket more tightly around her, which was gaping at her chest and fingered the cut on his head unconsciously, which was stinging and sticky with congealed blood.

"Night, Rose," he said quietly, rubbing her shoulder somewhat awkwardly for want of something better to do.

What was she dreaming about, he pondered, looking at her closed lids. Golf carts, canapés and Orlando Bloom-esque imbeciles probably, he thought wryly; an image of the too-perfect, too-toned perma-tanned waiter chatting up his…mate popping into his mind, causing him to wrinkle his nose in distaste. 'I've lost my number, can I have yours?' he'd asked her, the smarmy fool. Rose's expression had been priceless; halfway between pity and bewilderment. The Doctor, on the other hand had merely looked thundery and had attempted to drag Rose off to examine the canapés, which he'd told her looked suspicious, like reconstituted alien meat…even though they had in fact looked perfectly fine, before the waiter had skidded on that insufferable ice-cube and flailed his arms around like a windmill to regain his balance; knocking the Doctor out with his trusty tray in the process.

Rose was right, though. Save for the tray-wielding waiter and the more obvious fracas with a power-hungry alien, it had been a good night. He and Rose; they'd had a whale of a time.

Hopefully tomorrow would be just as good, he thought brightly. Back to 1997…he was looking forward to his Sherbet Fountain.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherbet Fountain:

Salt and Sherbet

**Disclaimer:** Yes! I do actually own 'Daniel Todd', but you're welcome to him. He's not very nice, is he?

**Author's Note**: Apologies for not updating this in a while, but it's the summer holidays now so I've got much more time for writing and updating, so hopefully this will be nearly finished soon. Let me know what you think, and _pretend_ that S4 never happened; it works, honestly!

* * *

Rose could count on one hand the number of times she had ran away and the Doctor _hadn't_ come running after her. There had been that time on Jadlen; a dreary, all-grey planet with black rain, where she and the Doctor found themselves in a spot of trouble for not complying with the compulsory dress code.

"You want us to wear nothing but grey?" the Doctor had protested incredulously, to a mob of furious, umbrella wielding Charlie Chaplin-esque clones who had balked at their colourful attire. Well, Rose's more than the Doctor's. The Doctor had been wearing his usual pinstriped suit and white Converse, whereas Rose had been dressed in jeans, trainers and a red denim jacket. She'd stood out a mile. And a half.

"But we'd look like two elephants trampling around the place!" he'd continued, ignoring the fact that he was making the assembled group of men grow steadily more irate… Anyway, after being rudely prodded and tutted at by a handful of little grey men, who had regarded her with as much distaste as Queen Victoria had back in 1879, Rose and the Doctor had settled for their usual "Right, sorry. Didn't realise. Won't do it again. We'll just be off now then…no? Oh all right then…RUN!" tactic and had legged it back to the TARDIS.

Except Rose ran on her own, not realising the Doctor had been re-captured. So that was _one_ time he hadn't come running after her and…actually no, he had technically _tried_ to run after her but since he'd had his foot clamped the most he had been able to do had been an awkward sort of shuffle, so that didn't really count as a time when he hadn't run after her. Rose couldn't think of another example.

The fact of the matter was that the Doctor never had _not_ ran after her. Yet, Rose still couldn't help but foolishly hope that the Doctor might break the habit of however many lifetimes and for once, _not_ be concerned for the welfare of his companion.

Pigs would fly first; of course, but for the first time ever she didn't want him to come with her. She didn't want him to see this; she was far too ashamed…

She'd faced countless dangers in the time that she'd traveled with the Doctor; been frightened out of her wits more times than she could count. Slitheen, Gelth, Daleks, Clockwork Droids, yet at the appearance of four hard- faced grimy boys she'd completely frozen.

She'd felt heat rise in her cheeks, felt her breath hitch in her chest and a squeeze of nausea in her stomach. That old, horrible snatch of fear that she'd felt as a child, whenever she'd stepped out onto the school playground to find them waiting for her, or whenever she'd been sandwiched between two of them in the dining hall as she'd joined the queue for those who received free school meals, prickled down her back.

For a moment her mouth went very dry and she felt a chill creep over her shoulders and chest. It didn't matter that she was a grown woman in her 20's; that the group of boys wouldn't recognise this pretty, blonde in the denim jacket as being the same little girl they had been tormenting, or that she had a tall, brilliant man Time Lord standing next to her, who would be more than willing to stick up for her till the end of the universe; Rose was still scared.

These boys, they were all exactly the same as she remembered; same haircuts and shifty eyes; same Kappa trainers, school trousers and knocked-off Berghaus jackets with back to front baseball caps.

Just for a moment, she couldn't help but feel like the timid, upset nine year old who used to come home in floods of tears and bury her face in her mum's shoulder after being called names and having her pencil case flushed down the toilet…seeing them, sparked a shiver of self-consciousness and insecurity that she'd forgotten she was capable of feeling.

But not only did they dredge up the ghosts of her childhood anxieties, they also instilled in her a new, fresh alarm. Because if they were buying Sherbet Fountains, it meant that _today_ was the day. She was uneasy because she _knew_ what was going to happen; she knew exactly what those boys were going to do with those Sherbet Fountain's…she _had_ to find herself. Her younger self. Now.

Somewhere close by, nine year old Rose Tyler was walking home from school, probably trying not to cry, unaware that she was about to be cornered by this group of horrible bullies.

Rose knew she would be able to do nothing more than just stand there and watch helplessly, in much the same way as she had once watched her dad be knocked down in the road; timelines were too fragile for her to interfere with; how many times had the Doctor told her that? Yet she had to be there, she had to see; she couldn't explain _why_ exactly, she just…had to.

Panicking, she had hurriedly thrust her purse at the Doctor, silently hoping that she had enough money to cover all her spontaneous purchases and had dashed out of the shop, leaving a thoroughly confused Doctor at the counter, like a groom abandoned at the altar on his wedding day. Well, sort of… Nearly.

Now here she was, running, the cuffs of her denim jacket balled into her fists, trying to see past the angry tears that were preventing her from seeing where she was going. Where _was_ she going? Out of old habit she had turned left outside the newsagents and had joined the throng of students from Jericho Street's Primary and Comprehensive moving en masse away from the school buildings, towards the outskirts of the district.

Wiping a sleeve across her damp cheek, Rose squeezed past a group of giggling girls walking arm and arm reciting dialogue from _Kenan and Kel _and dodged a red Ford parked half-on, half-off the pavement. It took her a couple of seconds before she realised that her feet were taking her in the direction of the park; a large grassy, tree-lined area two streets away from the high street and her old school, with fat, bedraggled ducks bobbing up and down on a murky pond and a small ice-cream van beside the gates.

Her old route home. She'd always cut through the park; it acted as a short-cut to her estate, rather than looping round the main roads, and more importantly, it got her away from the majority of the students walking home in large groups. There was less of a chance for her to be spotted and jeered after.

Until that day. Well, this day in fact. After today the younger Rose would avoid walking through the park at all costs…

Rose was running past the small bakery, which was packed with pushchairs and workers buying over-priced sandwiches, the smell of fresh gingerbread and hot sausage rolls tickling her nostrils, when she heard someone calling her name.

"Rose!"

There were quick footfalls behind her, before she felt a strong, familiar hand grip her arm and she was quite roughly pulled round to face, who else? The Doctor.

"Rose," he started in disbelief, sounding vaguely accusatory, going slightly higher than usual. "What…" he faltered, taking in her too-wet eyes and the pained look on her face. His expression turned from mild bewilderment to definite concern.

He held her elbow firmly with one hand, the other coming up to rest just below her right shoulder, forcing her to look at him properly, his dark eyes intense and searching.

"Why are you crying? What's wrong?" he asked quietly, squeezing her elbow gently and ignoring the crowds of students who were complaining loudly because he and Rose were blocking the path. To her mortification, the undisguised worry and concern in his eyes was enough to bring more tears to her eyes. The unspoken extent to which he cared about her was oddly touching.

"Nothing," lied Rose, sniffing and trying to look at anything other than the Doctor. Ah yes, the shiny red and yellow sign hanging over the doorway to the post office on her left would do quite nicely.

Unfortunately, the Doctor could tell when she was lying as easily as Rose could tell the time, and he simply raised his eyebrows at her and gave her a 'Rose-Tyler-do-you-really-think-you-can-hide-anything-from-me' sort of look.

Rose shrugged her arm out of the Doctor's grasp, like a child struggling to wriggle free from a restraining parent.

"I need to go," she told him shakily, her voice sounding more pleading than demanding. "I just…have to I,"

Rose broke off suddenly, staring at something over the Doctor's shoulder, her lips parted in a small 'O' of surprise, her face paling, her eyes glassy and transfixed.

The Doctor craned round, searching for whatever it was that was causing her to look so distressed…that's when he spotted her. Walking by herself; white, patterned socks pulled up to her knees, a dark grey school skirt with wide pleats that was just a fraction too short; a bobbly school jumper bearing the Jericho Street Primary embroidery that was pulled down over her hands.

A pink, square plastic lunchbox decorated with _Barbie_ stickers swung from her left hand, whereas a silver inflatable bag hung over her shoulders. Green, moon-shaped stick-on earrings were pressed to her lobes instead of the usual silver hoops she now wore, and a thick velvet-covered hair band with 'Rose' smudged across it in gold glitter glue was slotted in her hair, above a thick, straight fringe.

Her hair was a mousy brown rather than bottle blonde, but there would be no mistaking who this girl was, even if her name hadn't been written on her hair band. Though they were yet to be outlined with lashings of thick, clumpy mascara, her brown eyes, which were almost as familiar to him as his own, were the same as ever. This little girl was Rose Tyler.

The Doctor gaped, his mouth falling open as he watched the little Rose break away from the other children, walking up the street in dribs and drabs, like salmon, and hurrying along a manky-looking back alley behind a pizza takeaway.

"She's going to the park," muttered Rose to herself, scuffing the toe of her trainer against the ground, looking after her younger self in almost helpless trepidation.

"_She_ is or _you_ are?" asked the Doctor unsmilingly, also looking after the lone, retreating figure.

Rose swallowed. 'She' or 'I'? Rose knew her younger self was going to the park because she could remember being her, walking despondently along, desperate to get home before those awful boys found her. But the boys were only in the shop…they would catch up with her any minute.

How many years ago was this? Seven? Eight? Nine? It was all so confusing…trying to remember was like trying to remember bits from a dream, like trying to do a jigsaw with your eyes closed.

Yet she was sure of this, on this day, however many years ago she had been walking along on her own, through smelly back alleys, skirting bins and skips, until she got to the park, where she had ran into her bullies just beside the dense, tree-lined exit, but before she had reached the park she had been running...why? What had made her nine year old self start running?

_Then_ it hit her; realisation dawned on her with as much force as a tidal wave and Rose could remember exactly why she had started to run…because someone had told her to. A very specific someone…

"_We_ are," Rose corrected him distractedly, her eyes still damp, looking wildly around for an alternate route to the park. Familiar shops and blurred faces of teenagers she went to school with, but who were by now probably getting married and starting to have children of their own all mingled together in a flurry of movements and bright colours.

Rose chewed on her lip, looking around the busy street but without really _seeing_ it at all.

She pointed towards a quite ugly looking pebble dashed church at the end of the road.

"We're about two minutes away," she informed him. "We can go up the high street and left at the corner of the church, yeah?"

"Yes but _why_ are we…?" began the Doctor impatiently, evidently at a complete loss as to why a) Rose had ran out of the newsagents, leaving him clutching a carrier bag of sweets and pre-teen magazines like a lemon, and b) why she suddenly had this mad urge to go to the park. Somehow, he didn't think it was because she wanted to feed the ducks…

"In a minute," she muttered aside to him, standing on her tiptoes so she had a better view of her younger self who had almost drifted completely out of sight. Oh, _please_ let this work…

"Rose! Run!" she shouted loudly after the little girl, causing the people around her to stare round at her curiously, as if she'd taken leave of her senses.

Hearing the shout, the younger Rose wheeled around, her eyes darting nervously from side to side to see whom it was who had shouted. Nevertheless, she heeded the anonymous warning and broke into a run; scarpering off like a frightened mouse and vanishing round the corner.

Rose did not have time to see whether her younger self had spotted her or not, because the Doctor grabbed her hand and together, they sprinted full-pelt up the high street, weaving round people, running on and off curbs.

"What are you _doing_?" he hissed angrily, her hand held tightly in his, jostling each other with their arms as they ran.

"I don't know that it's me," Rose told him breathing heavily as they skidded past a bus stop. "I think it's just a random woman."

The Doctor simply shook his head at her in annoyance, deciding not to reply.

Both the Doctor and Rose evidently decided that mid-run wasn't the best time for a meaningful conversation, and so they ran in an almost preoccupied silence. Rose had a flitting feeling that the Doctor wasn't very happy with her, yet she pushed it to the back of her mind, trying to suppress the sick, tight feeling tying knots in her stomach.

Soon, they left the high street, with its bustling shoppers and student buskers strumming away on worn guitars outside shop windows behind.

The noise of parents telling children to hold their hands, of young women gossiping about the latest sales, the tooting of buses and the general hubbub of activity spilling out onto the street from open cafes and market stalls, all stringed together with the sound of a long-haired, unshaven art student murdering a Beatles song on the street corner, trickled into a gradual quiet as the Doctor and Rose rushed down a narrow side street between the church and the church hall.

It wasn't until they'd crossed the road at the end of the street and pushed through the park gates that they slowed down, the Doctor pulling Rose into a clump of trees to the left of an algae-covered pond.

The Doctor faced her with his hands crammed into his pockets with an expression on his face that was a cross between disappointment and disapproval.

"The last time you interacted with your past self," began the Doctor shortly, in a tone that suggested that he was going to tell her off, like some sort of _child_.

"She didn't see me!" snapped Rose, surprising even herself with how angry and defensive she sounded.

There was a small silence in which neither of them moved. The Doctor shot Rose a swift, searching look before dropping his gaze to the muddy grass beneath his feet, waiting for her to continue, as he knew she would. It was unusual for her to be quite so angry and wound up. Whatever it was that was wrong, it must be particularly grave if she was this upset…

Rose sighed, letting her shoulders sink and leaned dejectedly against a tree, feeling the rough, flaky hardness of the trunk pressing against her back.

"She didn't see me," she repeated, more softly this time with the hint of an apology in her voice, rubbing her hands over her face. "But it was always me," she said, sliding down the trunk so that she was sitting huddled at the base of the tree, her legs folded into her chest.

"This one day after school, when I was about nine; I was only in year six, I was walking home when I heard this woman shout my name, telling me to run…so I did," she mused, pulling up handfuls of grass and letting the thin green blades fall through her fingers.

"It was today; that woman was _me_," said Rose wonderingly, but she didn't sound very confident; it was as if she were too confused to think properly, as if she were hypothesising; voicing her thoughts to see if they made sense. From the studied frown on her face, it looked like she was mentally trying to solve quadratic equations.

The Doctor looked down at her, towering above her where she sat. If she were to raise her eyes from the ground, which she was studying as if it were the most interesting thing she'd ever seen, she'd be met with nothing more than an eyeful of pinstriped knees.

"Who were you running from?" he asked quietly, crouching down opposite her in the grass, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes gentle.

Rose glanced up at him in a preoccupied sort of way and then back down at the small pile of grass she was twisting around her fingers.

"The boys in the shop," she told him flatly, her eyes glazed and unseeing, as if the image of the same awful boys was performing a never-ending dance through her head. Cruel and taunting.

"There was this boy called Daniel Todd," she said carefully, her voice wobbling slightly, her hands frantic as she wringed them together in distress. It was as if she didn't trust herself to speak, as if it were too difficult and painful to spit out the words.

"Him and his mates used to…used to bully me," she said tentatively, refusing to look at the Doctor, as if she were admitting to something crude and shameful. "Non-stop. For two years," she croaked, with a bitter smile. "I saw them today and I just…I don't know…I just panicked and ran…I'm sorry."

The Doctor watched, as a lone, silent tear made its way down Rose's cheek and dripped off her chin. She looked…very fragile. Just two days before she'd been immaculately dressed in her best cocktail dress with perfect, porcelain make-up, and they'd laughed and carried on about canapés and cheese and…Clouseau and…the Spice Girls.

Every time he'd looked at her he'd been faced with a gleaming white smile with just the tip of her tongue peeking through and crinkled, happy eyes. Now though, she was dressed in plain black trousers and a purple vintage-style t-shirt underneath her faded denim jacket. Her hair was neither straight nor wavy; just looked messy and unstyled, and her eyelashes were sticking together with tears.

The coating of mascara on her right eye was beginning to smudge; there was faint greyish black tidemarks just under her lower lashes and he could see that her complexion was slightly oily and uneven; her forehead was too greasy and white tinged spots decorated the top of her nose.

She was flawed and imperfect. She was so…Rose. But late night after late night and too-little sleep had finally taken its toll on her; she looked pale and tired; why had he never noticed it before? How had he failed to see how worn-out she had become?

"Don't be," he murmured, shaking his head to dismiss her apology, clenching his jaw. "What did they do?" he asked, in an excruciatingly calm voice. Too calm. It was the voice he used whenever he was trying to keep a hold of his temper.

Rose's head snapped up; she recognised the tone at once and saw that there was a strange, dangerous, protective sort of fire dancing in his eyes. Dancing for _her_. She shrugged, trying to stay casual but her mouth was trembling.

"Usual stuff," she said in a deadpan voice. "Called me names, threw balls off me in PE; tripped me up in the corridor; put bubblegum in my hair; stuffed used toilet paper in my coat pocket; nicked my homework so I'd get into trouble when I couldn't hand it in…" she trailed off, either unwilling or unable to elaborate any further.

There was a large lump burning at the back of her throat, and there was the too-familiar sensation of more tears prickling at her eyelids, like salty needles.

"Why?" growled the Doctor, glaring at the ground, as if it too had been hurting Rose.

Rose gave a small, hollow laugh; which came out sounding more like a snort that anything else.

"'Cause of where I'm from," she said, with a strain of defiance. "'Cause I live on a _council estate _and I've got no dad," she continued in mock-horror, unable to stop the bitter sarcasm from dripping over her words. Sometimes, she'd felt as if admitting you were from a single-parent family on a council estate was akin to saying that you were a plague-ridden tramp living in the sewers.

Old women used to wrinkle their noses at her or tut when she and her mum clambered on the bus into town. People would give them a certain _look_; one that was a mix of pity, distaste and snobbery. They always assumed that her mum had become pregnant at a ridiculously young age, that her father had walked out on them and that her mum was using her child benefits to buy alcohol and drugs. Why though? Why did people always assume? It just…wasn't fair and it certainly wasn't true.

Yes her mum and dad _had_ been young when they'd married, but not _too _young. Her mum had had her when she was twenty-one and although they'd hadn't had as much money as they would have liked, they'd managed. But then her dad had been killed in a road accident and Jackie had had to move to the Powell Estate to support herself and her one-year-old daughter.

She'd brought Rose up all on her own, and of _course_ there'd been some downsides; there were always a lot of fights in the car park; there were a lot of smashed windows and fireworks put through letterboxes and the lifts always smelt of urine and never worked but…that was just the way things were. Rose was fiercely proud of how well her mum had coped, how she'd always looked after them both and still stayed bubbly and chatty, even when times had been particularly hard.

Her upbringing and family background were what had made Rose the target for bullies, yet she was not about to apologise for it; she wouldn't change it for anything.

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck and rested his chin on his hand, mulling over his words carefully as he looked at Rose, fidgeting with the grass, her eyes troubled and downcast.

"Rose, even if," he started, but then broke off as Rose looked up at him expectantly, her eyebrows arched, like a child needing to be reassured. "As if it would _help_," he muttered crossly to himself. Silently and deliberately, he took the blades of grass out of Rose's hands and let them fall to the ground.

Taking Rose's cool hands in both of his he rose to his feet, pulling Rose up with him, who stumbled, before drawing her towards him and wrapping her in a tight hug.

Rose gave a muffled 'oomph!' squeezing her eyes tightly shut and clasping her hands together around his neck as she rested her head against his shoulder, breathing in his familiar Doctor smell. A mix of peppermint, soap, green tea and toffee. Oh and Time. Being a Time Lord, it was only natural to expect that the Doctor would smell of Time…

Rose held onto him tightly, feeling his hands pressed against her back protectively. She felt ridiculously safe and secure. One hug from the Doctor had banished all the niggling worries about destroying the timelines, all her insecurities about once more seeing the boys who had made her life miserable, all the built up dread that had spread through her chest about seeing what she was about to see.

That was all she had needed; a hug; a murmur in her ear that tickled her neck and said that everything would be all right; someone there to hold her hand. It wasn't often that Rose needed reassuring; that her confidence and strength of will failed her, but this time it had, ever so slightly. That was fine, though because she was after all a human, she was so, so human; she had human fears and childhood worries under her infectious smile and chirpy manner and the Doctor innately knew what to do to comfort her. Just because he was the _Doctor_…

"Oi! Tyler!" came a gruff boy's shout from nearby. Rose stiffened upon hearing it and broke off from the Doctor quickly, detaching herself as if he had burnt her.

She looked towards the brown, filthy pond on autopilot. She'd heard the name 'Tyler' and had instinctively jerked her head around. There, standing just a few feet away from Rose and the Doctor where they were hidden amongst the trees, were the boys from the shop, stood with their backs to them.

The leader, the boy Rose had identified as 'Daniel' with the pudding haircut, nasty smirk and sly eyes was close enough so that Rose could read the peeling, felt slogan stretched across the back of his coat.

She had been so preoccupied with her thoughts and with the Doctor that she hadn't noticed their silent, wolfish approach.

Inwardly she cringed, reaching for the Doctor's hand as she looked over Daniel's shoulder and saw a flash of familiar light brown hair and a pink plastic lunchbox.

Rose; shaking and terrified, chewing her lip so hard to keep herself from crying that it bled, being pushed forward by two boys; their hands biting and hurtful around her skinny wrists.

"Where's your mummy, Tyler?" Daniel jeered in a falsely high-pitched sugar coated voice that one might use when talking to a baby. "Are you going to shout for your mummy?"

"She came out in the street in her pyjamas and slippers yesterday!" chipped in the boy on young Rose's left; a chubby, gormless-looking boy with yellowing teeth and a gold stud in his ear. "S'matter Rose? Is your mum too poor to be able to afford clothes?"

There was a mild tittering at this, as if he had told an excellent sort of joke, but Rose herself could feel anger rising in her chest and pursed her lips, clenching her jaw until it started to ache.

The most frustrating thing was that she couldn't intervene, she couldn't do or say anything to defend her younger self; she just had to watch uselessly. She glanced across at the Doctor, and saw that he was watching the children in front of him like a hawk, his mouth growing steadily thinner with each jibe and insult against Rose and Jackie.

"She don't wear no clothes though, do she?" scorned a pale, wiry boy wearing a blue wooly QPR hat. "My mum says that Jackie Tyler dresses like an old tart 'cause it's the only way she can pay for her TV license!"

More jeers and unkind laughter.

"My Nan says that Jackie's 'ad more boyfriends than she's 'ad hot dinners!" added another boy. "Says that she ain't nothin' more than a dozy slapper sponging off the government!"

There was yet more raucous laughter, before it splintered off and Rose realised that it was because someone else had spoken. A shaky, female voice, bleating like an injured lamb.

"What's that, Tyler? What you saying?" spat Daniel menacingly swaggering forwards and bending down in an intimidating way so that he was almost nose to nose with the younger Rose.

"My mum's not a slapper!" repeated the young Rose bravely, shaking like a leaf in front of her tormentors but nevertheless determined to defend her mum. This was the Rose he knew.

Amongst the trees, the Doctor gave Rose a small half-smile, impressed and proud that even at that age, surrounded by boys so much bigger than her, she was still looking out for her mum. Rose blinked back at him, seriously.

Unconsciously, she had mouthed the words 'My mum's not a slapper,' at the same time as her younger self had said them, because she could remember the words falling from her lips, remember being unable to hold her tongue, regardless of how nervous she felt, remembered feeling an unyielding urge to stop these awful boys from being nasty about her beloved mum.

But that had been a mistake…all those years ago; she should never have spoken. If anything she had made everything ten times worse for herself. The group of boys had howled with laughter at Rose's pitiful whimper and had gone to great lengths to show their favourite victim that, as far as they were concerned, they were right and Rose was very, very wrong.

Rose knew what was going to happen, knew exactly how the boys were going to react because she could remember, she'd been here before. She'd been that small, little Rose with the wrinkly white socks and mousy brown hair. It was like reading the last chapter of a book first, like knowing the ending before she'd read the full story.

"I don't want to watch," she mumbled to the Doctor, still holding his hand but angling her body away so that she was facing the splintered, broken brown fence that ran around the perimeter of the park rather than watch her younger self being bullied.

She studied the fence as an archaeologist may regard a freshly-dug relic, reading the graffiti that was scrawled all over it in white spray paint, even counting the rotten slats of wood; anything to keep her mind off what was going on behind her. Though, even if she could not see, she could still hear.

Her ears prickled as she heard an ominous splash after lots of boyish sniggering and cajoling, yet she didn't turn around. She didn't need to; she knew that her lunchbox had been snatched from the young Rose's grasp and flung into the middle of the pond amid loud cheers and whoops.

It had taken her completely by surprise. One minute she had been craning tearfully up at Daniel, biting on the inside of her cheek after she'd attempted to speak up for her mum, the next, she'd just felt the hard plastic handle of her lunchbox being wrenched from her sweaty hand and had watched dumbfounded, her eyes wide as it had bobbed up and down on the surface for a few seconds, like a cork, before sinking, leaving a gap in the algae like punctured rice paper.

She heard the Doctor give a sharp intake of breath when there came a loud SPLAT from behind her, followed by hysterical laughter and a loud, high-pitched shriek. As much as she wanted to close her eyes and clamp her hands over her ears, she couldn't help but turn around this time.

It was like watching a horror film, where one part of you wants to shrink behind a cushion, afraid to find out whatever gory, violent monster is hiding in waiting, yet the other part of you, in spite of your tremour wants to watch in horrified fascination. She couldn't stop herself from turning to face the scene, like watching the aftermath of a car crash.

The younger Rose crouched down with her hands covered over her head in instinctive foetus position, wailing as handful after handful of sloppy green algae was pelted relentlessly off her head and body. The boys had decided to use her as target practice, throwing the green mushy algae as clowns would throw cream pies at a circus. Rose was the ultimate, helpless prey. The prime example of someone to make fun of…

Beside her, the Doctor shifted in agitation, as if he wanted to do nothing more than to stride over and scoop the little girl up out of harm's way, yet he knew better than Rose that he could not. Still, to be forced to do nothing but watch as someone he deeply cared about was attacked and mistreated was extremely hard.

It was taking up all of his self-restraint to stay hidden beneath the leafy canopy of the trees overhead, even though this was Rose before he had met her, even though he knew that Rose was perfectly safe by his side, if a little shaken.

Rose could not tear her eyes away from the brutal, disgusting sight. To be watching from the sidelines, to be seeing it from a new, different perspective was strange, like watching yourself on a video camera. You recognise that the person on screen is you, and you can remember _being_ in the position of that person on screen, yet you're also aware of yourself as being entirely separate.

She watched as the young, brown haired girl flailed about on the muddy grass, shrieking and sobbing, actually _pleading_ with the boys to stop, but she could remember the feel of the icy-cold, slimy algae hitting her face with a wet _thwack_, remember the stagnant musty odour as clumps of it got splattered over her mouth and nose, like foul jelly.

They'd shoved it down the neck of her jumper too; great big dripping clods of algae forced down her back, freezing her as it slithered down, seeping through her clothes. It had been the most repulsive sensation she'd ever felt; slimy and cold and congealing.

The four boys guffawed and high-fived at their crying, shaking conquest on the ground, huddled up like a kicked puppy, but Rose herself felt sick; sick and revolted at what she was seeing, even though she had been the one to experience it all those years ago, watching it played out in front of her made it seem so much more real and harrowing. How could _anyone_ deserve this? What on earth had been going through the minds of those boys? Did they find it funny? Did it make them feel powerful?

She looked at the Doctor, standing as if frozen, never taking his eyes of the younger Rose, his mouth set into a grim, unforgiving line, his face much paler than usual. His stare was so dark that his eyes had turned almost black; they were troubled and full of compressed emotion; anger, pity and loathing.

He looked sideways at Rose, as if checking to see that she was still there, convincing himself that she was all right, and the _look_ he gave her was so powerful and intense that she almost quailed under its strength. It was a look of pride, bitter passion, loyalty and sheer protectiveness, as if he were afraid that he was about to lose her. The Oncoming Storm in his eyes made her feel, just for one moment that she was the most important thing in his universe, and she felt such a tingle of electricity flow between them that she couldn't help but jerk towards him, resting a shaking hand on his chest, feeling the double heartbeat beneath her fingers.

The Doctor said nothing, but merely pulled Rose closer to him so that they were standing with their arms pressed tightly together, before adjusting their handhold. Briefly, he let go of her hand, before feeling for her fingers and interlacing them with his own.

Rose stared silently down at their joined hands; they were clasped together so tightly that she couldn't tell which fingers were the Doctor's and which were her own; they were like corresponding pieces of a jigsaw; holding his hand felt warm and fuzzy and _comforting_, in much the same way as being wrapped around him in a piggy-back had felt the night before.

"They haven't finished," Rose said softly, as the Doctor made to move forwards, seeing that the group of boys stepped back from little Rose.

Rose could remember seeing her own bruised knees swimming into focus before her as she opened her eyes tentatively; the algae offensive having stopped, before white-hot pain seared across her lids, blinding her instantly as Daniel rummaged in his pocket and tipped an entire Sherbet Fountain over her head, the sherbet clumping together in her hair and sticking like bad dandruff. He ripped the top twist off the second Sherbet Fountain with his teeth before pouring it into her blood-shot eyes, rubbing it in roughly with cruel, dirty knuckles.

The _agony_ of the white powder dissolving in her eyes was venomous; it was corrosive and acidic; worse than getting soapsuds in your eyes, worse even than chilli powder, and Rose found that her own eyes were hopelessly streaming as she watched herself clamp her small hands over her burning eyes, rubbing them fruitlessly and howling. Great, heaving sobs that shook her little body at such a high pitch and loud volume that both Rose and the Doctor flinched at the noise, as did the group of boys.

Apparently panicked and worried that Rose's painful screams would attract the attention of the passers-by in the street and get them into trouble, they backed off slowly, staring at what they had done before breaking into a cowardly run, leaving a dirty, crying Rose in a heap on the ground like discarded baggage; drenched in pond water and crying tears of salt and sherbet.


	4. Chapter 4

Sherbet Fountain:

Extraordinary Rose

**Disclaimer:**Oh. If you recognise it, it's not mine

**Author's Note:** Here's me thinking I'd have this story finished and uploaded by the end of July! Well erm; that hasn't happened at all! I'm off on holiday tomorrow (no computer access; so it's back to writing with the old pen and scraps of paper) so this is my last update for a while :( Let me know what you think.

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The Doctor's reaction was instantaneous. No sooner had the boys ran off, shoving each other with their elbows, he bounded forward towards the little Rose and, as carefully as he could, wiped the excess sherbet from the hollows of her eyes with his thumbs, where it was clinging to her eyelashes and clumped underneath her brow bone.

"Shh, it's alright; they've gone," he said, gently pulling her upright by her shoulders. He wasn't entirely convinced that she could hear him though, as she was getting close to hysterical, scrabbling at her eyes. "No no no, don't rub them," he said firmly, but kindly, removing her hands from her eyes. "You'll make it worse."

The younger Rose however, was quite plainly still terrified and did not stop crying, nor did she stop rubbing frantically at her eyes but really, who could blame her? It was a natural reaction to want to rub her eyes…

Hesitantly, Rose walked forward to join the Doctor and her younger self, although truth be told, she felt quite light-headed. It was bad enough having to experience the incident the first time round, worse still to have to watch it again. She was probably in a mild state of shock, she concluded, moving as if she were walking under water; her legs didn't seem to want to work properly.

She felt the same as she had when Mickey had wanted to see _Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King_ and had dragged her along with him; she'd been sat for what, three hours in the cinema, immersed in the fantasy story and so when it had finally finished and she'd left the screen room with pins and needles in her feet, it had been like being brought back down to earth, being brought back to reality.

She'd been lost in epic battles and an impossible love story, and so the prospect of facing a boring London evening, going to the chippie and then settling down to watch _Eastenders_ was frankly, like an annoying wake-up call. She felt exactly the same now; a bit all over the place; seeing the Doctor with her squealing nine-year-old self was disconcerting, as if it defied some sort of law, but then, the Doctor never really liked adhering to laws anyway, at least, not the ones he didn't want to follow.

It looked _weird_ though; watching the Doctor crouching down beside the little Rose in an oddly _paternal_ fashion…ugh. Rose shuddered; the thought making her feel quite nauseous and uneasy, because she was dimly conscious, though a small, stubborn part of her still didn't want to admit to it, that her feelings for the Doctor weren't _entirely_ platonic…

She drifted over to his side, leaving the sanctuary of the thick, old trees in a daze and hovered behind him as he did his best to try and comfort her other self, wiping the slimy green algae tenderly away from her nose and mouth.

"Don't!" he said sharply, catching her hand as Rose stretched it out to remove a clump of the wet, disgusting stuff from the younger Rose's head, where it was sitting like a repulsive tiara.

Rose jerked her hand back as if she had scalded it. She hadn't been about to touch her younger self, of _course_ she hadn't; she wasn't stupid! She was only going to touch the algae; no risk of paradoxes or holes in timelines there…she could remember the sloppy weight of the rank algae sopping into her hair, all over her scalp wishing that she could just shake it off, but it had been everywhere.

Her eyes had been burning, she couldn't see, she was panicking, she was _scared_, disorientated; dripping in pond water and algae she'd felt as if she were drowning; her head had felt so heavy and leaden, she couldn't _think_, she couldn't _breathe_…

"I'm not going to touch her," she whispered, shaking her head tensely and flinching backwards, her face pale, eyes aghast. She let a small distance fall between her other self and the Doctor and clapped a hand to her mouth, slowly.

She felt…what was it that she felt? Upset certainly, disgusted and horrified yet very _muddled_. Memories of _being_ that poor nine-year-old girl were flashing round her head like a roller coaster; one of the really fast, terrifying one that forces your head into the back of your seat and turns your stomach upside-down, yet she could _see_ herself _experiencing_ the emotions from her memories right in front of her. It was like listening to two people giving completely different instructions at the same time; it was hard to follow, hard to know what to _do_.

In frustration, she closed her eyes, blocking out the Doctor and the other Rose, trying to picture exactly what had happened on this day after the boys had left…

She'd had _sherbet_ in her eyes, and that had _hurt_. Hurt more than anything she had ever felt; it was all she could think about, all she could concentrate on; the pain in her eyes. Feeling wet and slimy and dirty; she'd howled, of course she'd howled. She'd only been nine years old. _Nine_, and she'd been attacked like this, by _boys_, not even teenagers; boys; it didn't bear thinking about; it was atrocious. Galling, even.

But there had been someone with her…hadn't there? She couldn't see; the sherbet had caused her to go temporarily blind; she was unable to open her eyes, so she hadn't seen them, but she'd _heard_ them. There had been a voice; a low, soothing man's voice, but she'd been crying so loud that she hadn't been able to hear what he had been saying. She had felt _frightened_; terribly, terribly frightened that the boys were going to come back; that they were going to hit her or kick her or take her away.

Then this _man_, this strange, faceless man that she couldn't see; who was he? Her mum had told her _never_ to talk to strangers, let alone strange men yet here was this new man talking to her…how did she know that he wasn't going to take her away? Who was he? Why should she trust him?

She'd wanted her _mum_; that's all. Just her mum! She'd wanted her mum to hug her and tell her that she wouldn't let those nasty big boys come near her again, she'd wanted her mum to sit her on her knee and wash the mud and algae of her face and twist her damp hair into neat plaits whilst they watched _Art Attack_, then _Scooby Doo_, drinking instant hot chocolate.

And then her mum had been there, hadn't she? She could remember hearing her soft voice, telling her that she was safe and that she didn't have to worry because she was going to take her home and have a nice hot bath with lots of bubbles and Rose had nodded, even whilst whimpering because that was exactly what she wanted and…she'd just been so happy and glad to hear her mum, to know that she was there, even if she couldn't really see her.

She'd smelt the familiar whiff of her mum's perfume hanging in the air and felt safe and secure. Then everything had gone a bit hazy, her mind had gone beautifully blank; she hadn't had to think about anything; she'd felt so relaxed and oddly weightless and experienced a curious, floating sensation as if she were bobbing up and down above the ground, as if someone had picked her up and carried her.

She'd woken up indoors, lying wrapped up in a too-big t-shirt in her neighbours house, her face pressed into the pink, squashy settee. Thankfully, she'd been sponged clean and her eyes, although extremely sore and swollen had been bathed in saline, all traces of sherbet rinsed away. How had she moved from the park to her neighbour's house, though? There was a complete blank, there, and actually, _why_ had she woken up in her neighbour's house in the first place if her mum had been at the park? Why hadn't her mum just taken her home?

Unless…

"Doctor!" cried Rose, lurching forwards towards him and the other Rose as it _finally_ occurred to her. "Wait!" she pleaded, grabbing a hold of his arm. "She's scared of you! She doesn't know who you are; she doesn't trust you!" she gabbled, her eyes wide and earnest. Oh it made _sense_ now! Of course, it was the _Doctor_ trying to reassure her, but the little Rose didn't know that; she evidently thought that he was a random stranger.

In fact, she _did_ think he was nothing more than a strange man because Rose could remember standing there crying, being confused as to who this man was and just wanting her mum…not him. But it wasn't her _mum_ that she could remember from today, was it? It was…herself. Her older self.

She'd heard her older self and thought it was her _mum_! Trying to shake off such a scary, off-putting thought; that Rose was turning into her mother, she shot the Doctor an apologetic look and crouched down in front of her younger self.

The Doctor looked from one Rose to the other, looking more than a little hurt and taken aback but nevertheless, held up his hands as if in wordless resignation and shuffled to the side.

"Rose," said Rose tentatively, looking unsurely at the Doctor for encouragement; suddenly, she had no idea what to _say_, what to _do_ to comfort a little girl. She wasn't her mother, she wasn't instinctively maternal; not really. True, she wasn't trying to comfort just any little girl; she was trying to comfort _herself_, and she knew that that must be some sort of a bonus; her comforting clearly worked because Rose could remember feeling so much better as soon as her 'mum' had spoken to her, but it just...felt _weird_.

The Doctor nodded, urging her to continue, gazing at the little Rose with overwhelming concern.

"Rose, sweetheart," tried Rose. The word 'sweetheart' felt strange and alien, tripping from her tongue, as if she were speaking a foreign language because of course, Rose didn't _use_ the term 'sweetheart', but her mum _did_ and little Rose thought _she_ was her mum, so she'd just have to bear with it…

"It's alright, it's ok. I'm here. You're safe, I promise," she said, suddenly fighting an powerful urge to put a gentle hand on each of her shoulders, just like her mum would do.

The Doctor, who had smiled at Rose's use of 'sweetheart' suddenly seemed extremely alarmed and gave Rose a 'What-on-earth-are-you-_doing_?' sort of look, waggling his eyebrows at her in warning.

"I-she thinks I'm my…err _her_ mum," Rose said to him out of the corner of her mouth, tripping over her pronouns once again.

The Doctor gave a small 'ah' of realisation and nodded, as if to convince himself of something and shot her an appraising look, as if trying to imagine her looking and talking like Jackie. He grimaced; one Jackie Tyler was quite enough to be going along with at the moment, thank you very much.

"You don't have to be worried Rose, honestly. They're not going to come back," Rose told her younger self with false cheer in her voice, looking intently into her face. It had been many years since she'd looked into the mirror and seen _this_ face looking anxiously back at her, thought Rose, itching to wipe a trickle of snot and mucus away from the younger Rose's upper lip.

Fumbling in her pocket, she brought out a bus ticket, a circular Sex Pistols badge she'd picked up when the Doctor had taken her to one of their concerts in the 70's, a half-empty packet of chewing gum and a clean but crumpled tissue. This she passed to the Doctor, who seemed to cotton on to exactly what she was thinking and dabbed at the younger Rose's nose with it, with no trace of embarrassment splayed across his features.

Instead, his expression was soft; pitying, even as he wiped her face delicately, in the same way as one might handle a freshly hatched baby bird, yet his eyes betrayed his hurt and rising anger.

In spite of himself, the Doctor found himself looking for obvious differences, looking to find ways in which she'd changed over the years, like doing a particularly unusual form of Spot the Difference. There weren't many.

Obviously, her face was smaller and was pale with worry and fright. Her jaw was strong and her cheek bones slightly too wide, as if she were yet to grow into them yet; her eyebrows were lighter than usual; the same colour as her mousy-brown hair, giving her a slightly surprised look, and were yet to be tamed by a precise set of tweezers; they were full and rather wild-looking.

Yet, even though most of her face was mottled with angry brown tidemarks, residue of mucky pond water; pale green snot and pure white, powdery sherbet, there was no denying that she was actually…quite pretty. Not that he held much value over looks; if his companions were beautiful or not, that was by the by, really. He could recognise that Rose was attractive, by human ideals at least, but it was no different to the way that he was able to recognise that she had two eyes, a nose, a mouth and a double circulatory system.

To think though, that one day this scared, bullied little girl would one day become the older, blonder woman standing beside him with the confident smile and heart of gold…that one day this girl crying for her mum would meet a man in a shop basement and save the world; it was…magnificent.

"Mum?" whimpered the little Rose stretching her hands out in front of her with her eyes squeezed shut, feeling for her 'mum.' Her desperate fingers found the Doctor and she gripped the material of his suit jacket tightly. "Mum?" she repeated, stroking the unfamiliar fabric.

"I'm…I'm here," said Rose hesitantly, glancing helplessly at the Doctor, who patted the younger Rose's arm, comfortingly. "And this is the Do- errr, this nice man says he's going to help us home. That's err nice, isn't it? Helping with my shopping…" prattled Rose, with literally no idea of what she was saying or where she was going with it.

She was just cheerfully rabbiting on about anything and everything, just like her mum would do, and hoping that she could get away with it. From what she could remember of today, she hadn't noticed anything odd about what her 'mum' had said, in fact, she hadn't realised up until now that it _hadn't_ been her mum; it had been _herself_…

She shrugged at the Doctor, who was looking at her as if he were fearful for her sanity. Again. "I tell you what I bought today though, Rose. Three for two at _Boots_; some new bubble bath! Bargain! One strawberry and one errr _banana_," she improvised, looking sideways at the Doctor for inspiration, who grinned at her choice of fruit.

"Let's get you home, yeah? Run you a lovely bubble bath and get all this stuff off you and then we'll put a video on, eh?"

The younger Rose nodded, her tears subsiding, but only _slightly_ as she lapsed into noisy, wet hiccups that shook her shoulders, as she clung on to the Doctor's suit.

The Doctor looked at the two Roses, his brow furrowed. The younger Rose was almost beside herself; dirty, upset and scared; so hysterical that it was only a matter of time before she was physically sick. The older Rose was deathly white and was shaking nearly as much as her younger self; it was evident that she was far, far more troubled than she thought she was letting on.

He could tell, just by glancing at her, that she was trying to keep herself composed; allowing her younger self to be the priority. It brought a whole new, incomprehensible meaning to the word 'selfless'; because she was putting the little girl first. But that little girl _was_ herself, was Rose; so actually, did that make her self_less_ or self_ish_?

The Doctor decided that it was irrelevant; somehow, he had to look after both Roses, and even though it was the younger one who had been attacked and left mud-stained and covered in algae in an empty park, it was the older Rose he was far more concerned about.

Purely because the older Rose was standing right beside him; the London shop girl who had met Queen Victoria, became the Bad Wolf and destroyed a fleet of Daleks, watched the End of the Earth and had been turned into a stone statue in ancient Rome, he knew that the younger Rose would be all right, would grow up to be absolutely brilliant.

But the older Rose…he wasn't sure about. She'd lived through one of the worst, scarring incidents of her life, and had then had to watch it again; what must that have done to her?

He knew how highly she thought of him; how much she believed in him and trusted him because she told him so. Regularly. Even daily. Truth be told, her unshakable faith in him had always scared him a little bit.

Because he _wasn't_ as wonderful as she seemed to think he was; he was an _alien_; he was a Time Lord; he was 901 years old; he was _old_ and _haunted_; responsible for the death of his people. He _was_ a killer; he _was_ powerful beyond anything she could ever imagine…he was the Oncoming Storm, and his biggest fear was that one day she would see him as he really was; one day she would see the full force of the storm inside him and would be petrified…of _him_.

A day like today. He had sworn to himself that he would always look after her and yet today he hadn't. Today, for the first time he had done nothing to stop her hurting; he had stood numbly by her side and let her watch; let her watch herself be victimised; let her become terrified by her own memories. What did that say about him?

Pulling on his hair in agitation so that it stood up on end, making him look like he'd been electrocuted he decided that enough was enough. _One_ hurting Rose he could manage but _two_? Two was unbearable.

"Can I…?" he gestured at the younger Rose, looking up at the older one as if asking her permission, or making sure that he wasn't doing anything against her established memories.

Rose nodded mutely, sniffing and scrubbing at her face with the sleeves of her denim jacket. Not knowing what his intentions were, but agreeing anyway simply because he was the _Doctor._

"Keep still," the Doctor murmured to the younger Rose, and as gently as he could, placed his hands on her temples, closing his own eyes as if trying to recall a dream, closing off all his other sense; feeling with just his mind.

The younger Rose's face changed from one etched with fear and intense discomfort to a blank, carefree mask. Giving a small, almost content sigh she fell forwards; flopping like a weighted rag doll against the Doctor's chest.

There was a resolute silence between the time travelers standing at the edge of the pond. It was so quiet that Rose could make out the _plink_ sound of the dirty water moving as it was disturbed by the ducks gliding backwards and forwards, oblivious to the shattering events going on at the side, as well as the steady hum of the traffic trundling through the city center behind her and the faint irritation of 'MmmBop' drifting from an open window of one of the houses in the street running parallel to the park's exit.

"What did you do to her?" asked Rose breathlessly, her eyes wide as saucers, and although she tried, she couldn't quite keep the accusatory tone out of her voice. She had no memory of any events from this point on. Her memory skipped from her 'mum' talking about bubble bath to waking up in her neighbour's house, as if the bits in-between had been erased; a memory bank wiped clean.

"I've just calmed her down," said the Doctor quietly, looking up at her as he held onto the little Rose in a hug, supporting all of her weight against him. "She's gone to sleep. It's her body's natural reaction against the shock…she won't remember anything from now until she comes round."

He stood up slowly, moving the little Rose so that one arm was underneath her knees and the other was supporting her shoulders and gently swiping a wet strand of hair that was sticking to her face with dirt away from her sherbet-caked lids.

"I don't." replied Rose, realising that once again they'd been referring to Rose as if she were a different person, as she stood, pulling down her t-shirt, where it had ridden up slightly and gazing, not at the Doctor and the little Rose, but down into the murky pond.

It mirrored the chaos going on inside her mind perfectly; the water was cloudy, just like her thoughts. It was too dirty to be able to see the bottom, and Rose's thoughts were buzzing around so frantically and were so muddled that she was finding it hard to think straight. She didn't know what to think or what to _feel. _She was emotionally worn out; she wanted just for the Doctor to lead her back to the TARDIS and to sit in their companionable silence that she so loved, whilst she sorted out the events of the day; separated memory from memory. At the same time though, she wanted nothing more than the warm, cosy scenario she'd just described to her younger self a hot, bubbly bath and to snuggle up on the settee with a favourite film. _Pretty Woman_ would be absolutely perfect, she decided, thinking of last night's conversation with the Doctor as they'd walked back to the TARDIS in the cold night air.

Yet, as she thought about it, she was astonished to find that it wasn't the _Doctor_ she imagined sitting beside her; the chair she was mentally curled up on wasn't the hard, bobbly captain's chair in the TARDIS; it was the soft, squashy settee at home with the fraying headrests. The arm pressed against hers wasn't suit-clad and masculine, but soft; flabbier and female in cotton pyjamas; her mum's arm.

She wanted her _mum_, she realised, with a soft ache of longing in her tummy. She wanted to curl up with her mum and let herself be folded into a too-tight hug that was warm, soft and fiercely protective. She wanted to be able to smell her mum's perfume and the powdery scent of her foundation and blusher that lingered in Rose's nostrils whenever Jackie kissed her. Her mum smelt of make-up and shampoo, washing powder and tea…

Rose swallowed the painful lump in her throat; willing herself not to start crying again; she'd cried quite enough for one day and if she started now…she'd never stop.

She shook her head to clear the image of a slipper-clad, smiling Jackie Tyler handing her a cup of tea and tapping Rose lightly with the remote to get her to shift along a bit as she settled herself down to watch oooh, _Big Brother _or _'I'm a celebrity…'_ and turned to the Doctor, who was watching her carefully.

"We need to get her…I mean _me_ home," said Rose, gesturing as the unconscious girl in the Doctor's arms, and then bending down to pick up the younger Rose's fallen bag; an inflatable silver thing that was much lighter than she remembered. Funny, how things seem so larger and imposing when you're a child…

Rose gave a watery smile as she felt the smooth plastic straps in her hand; it had been _years_ since she'd carried this bag. Whatever had happened to it? She'd left it on a coach during a school trip, probably; that was where most of her forgotten belongings had ended up, but Rose could definitely remember that after today she never used this bag much at all. She'd stuffed it down the gap between the wall and her wardrobe and had done her best to ignore it.

"Yeah, we do," agreed the Doctor. He grinned at her, something occurring to him as she fell into step beside him and together, they skirted round the pond and over to the park gates. "You know," he said pleasantly, seeing her unhappy expression and bravely trying to take her mind off things. "This is the second time I've carried you home, Rose Tyler."

Rose smiled back up at him, but it didn't quite meet her eyes; they remained troubled and downcast; something the Doctor couldn't help but pick up on. It was at times like these when he would have wordlessly taken her hand to comfort her, or pull her into an impromptu hug; circumstances permitting that they were not about to be shot at or arrested or…anything other sort of trouble that they regularly found themselves in. He couldn't, though; the way he was carrying the little Rose meant that he had both hands full; he couldn't even walk close beside her incase the two Roses came into skin contact.

"Last night doesn't count," Rose told him, staring at the ground as they trudged through the park gates and stepped out into the street, where they found themselves only a corner away from the Powell Estate. "Last night you carried me to the TARDIS."

"You're nitpicking," the Doctor chuckled, as they crossed the road.

"Mmh," replied Rose quietly, her tone sullen.

They fell once more into silence; though this time it was more uncomfortable, as if they were walking on shattered glass. The Doctor could tell that Rose was trying not to cry and was painfully aware that he would be able to do nothing whatsoever to comfort her; not like this; not with the younger, unconscious Rose as a literal barrier between them.

Rose, for once just didn't want to talk. She simply didn't want to. She just…what did she want? Ooh, she was too upset to even know herself.

The emergence of a tall, quite ugly-looking block of high-rise flats from behind a paint splattered wall marked their arrival to the Powell Estate, showing that they were only twenty minutes away from Rose's flat. Rose was surprised to find how little the area had changed. Everything looked a little cleaner and more in-tact now than it did in her own time, but it was honestly as if the past however many years simply had not happened. It was just as much of a dump now as it ever had been; burnt-out cars, broken windows, teenagers leaning menacingly against garden walls. The Powell Estate of 1997 looked the same as it did in the future, the only indication that any time had past was the clothes and haircuts worn by the residents, milling about the streets, staring curiously at the Doctor and the Roses.

"Rose?" ventured the Doctor, as they turned into a street that Rose could remember following the Doctor down when they'd first met, demanding to know about the living plastic and exactly _who_ he was. Of course, he'd looked very different then; broader, gruffer with a shaved head, Northern accent and piercing blue eyes.

"What?"

"Why did you think you were your mum?" he asked hesitantly, cautious not to upset her. "I mean, pretending to be Jackie it…"

"Why would I possibly think it was an older version of myself?" asked Rose stiltedly, frowning up at him. " You don't go around thinking you're talking to yourself; you'd go mental. I dunno…I just, I thought I was my mum." She shrugged. "I remember wishing that my mum was there, and then smelling her perfume and…but it wasn't my mum, it was only me," Rose concluded despondently, looking very subdued.

"Perfume?" repeated the Doctor with a slightly surprised tone, as if he'd never heard of a more peculiar word.

Rose nodded silently, shoving her hands in her denim jacket pockets. She was unsure of whether to tell him or not. She felt…not embarrassed about it as such, but slightly self-conscious, as if admitting to it would be something very private and personal.

But then…this was the _Doctor_, she told herself, looking sideways at him as they walked, taking in his familiar, handsome profile; the way his mouth was now turned up in a thoughtful sort of way, as if he were deliberating something; his masses of hair ruffling in the breeze, like it had a mind of its own. He was her best friend…why shouldn't she tell him? He wouldn't laugh at her, of course he wouldn't; he wouldn't think she was silly or childish; he would _understand_ unlike anyone else ever could. True, he might also be slightly concerned about her but then, wasn't he concerned already?

"Yeah, I'm wearing my mum's perfume today," Rose told him, throwing caution to the winds and deciding to be honest with him. It wasn't as if she'd _lie_ to him, was it? " I wear it when I miss her…'cause it reminds me of her and…I can pretend she's not so far away," she finished, saying the last sentence so quietly that she was almost inaudible.

She gave him an unsure, almost defiant look as he slowed and turned to look at her properly, as if she was afraid of being rebuked or scorned.

"Right," he said quietly, for a second a look of mingled hurt, regret and pity flashed across his face. " You never mentioned that you were bullied," he said softly as they carried on walking.

Rose kicked a stone distractedly, watching it skitter away down the street.

"It just…never came up," she mumbled, sounding absolutely miserable. She was quiet for a second before continuing. "Anyway, it's not important," she said in a falsely bright manner, forcing a smile onto her face.

"Isn't it?" countered the Doctor dryly, not being taken in at all by her light, breezy façade.

"I don't know," she admitted.

The Doctor looked down at the warm, mud-streaked child in his arms, whose dead weight was starting to make his wrists ache slightly, even though she was exceptionally small and spindly for her age, and then back at the woman who he always found by his side; she was only _just_ out of touching distance. If he had been able to reach out to her, his fingertips would have met empty air rather than the roughness of her denim jacket and the warmth of her arm. They were walking much too far apart; there was too much of a gap between them and he didn't like it at all; it made him feel slightly uneasy, like a jigsaw with a piece missing.

Suddenly, his Time Lord senses perked up, like the ears of a wile animal sensing danger; ones that he usually pushed to the back of his mind and tried to ignore. An almighty shiver trickled down his spine and the hairs stood up on the back of his neck; prickly and bristling.

For a time period shorter than a nanosecond; so short that only Time Lords really had the ability to register it, the Doctor felt such an overwhelming, crushing sadness that it seemed to freeze both of his hearts mid-beat and brought hot, rushing tears to his eyes; a powerful, agonising heartbreak that he had not felt since that day he'd watched his planet burn.

It caused his breath to catch in his chest, and he had a brief, vivid image of a cold, white wall stretched on forever in front of him and the irrepressible, terrifying feeling that Rose really, _really_ had gone from his side…

"Rose," he breathed, in frozen fright before he could stop himself, coming to an abrupt halt.

"Yeah?" She looked at him curiously, her dark eyebrows raised in concern.

"I…oh. Never mind," he said hesitantly, the strange image and feeling of sadness vanishing as quickly as it had come. He decided not to dwell on it; seeing Rose very solidly, very definitely beside him. Pale, sad, but oh so Rose.

"What happens now, for you?" he asked, quickly changing the subject. "_This_ you, I mean," he said, looking down at the younger Rose. "Do you have any more trouble with those boys after this?"

Rose too, looked down at her other self, looking at the way her sodden, muddy hair trailed over the Doctor's arm, hanging straight down like a curtain. In fact, the way the Doctor was carrying her younger self reminded her of a scene from one of her favourite _Disney_ films; _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_, where Quasimodo rescues the unconscious Esmeralda from being burnt at the stake and carries her back to the bell tower.

Except, in Rose's case, the burning stake was the offensive of sherbet and algae and the cathedral was her poky little flat. Not that she was implying that the Doctor was anything like Quasimodo, of course.

"Nah, they keep quiet, actually and leave me alone," said Rose. "I still don't know what made them stop to be honest; they just never came after me after today. Weird, innint?" she mused.

"Mmmh," agreed the Doctor, thoughtfully.

"One of them asked me out, you know?" remembered Rose with a wry smile. "The one with the QPR hat; a couple of years ago. Just a few weeks before I met you, actually."

"What did you tell him?" asked the Doctor, interestedly.

"Well, I was already going out with Mickey, wasn't I?" said Rose , matter-of-factly, looking down at her trainers. For some reason, she always felt embarrassed and uncomfortable when talking about Mickey in front of the Doctor.

"Ah, good old Mr. Mickey," chirped the Doctor fondly.

Rose snorted, a glimmer of a smile curling at the corners of her mouth for the first time since the newsagents.

"It was Mickey who looked out for me after this," she told him. "My mum didn't want me walking home on my own for the first few weeks after today, so Mickey's Gran volunteered him to walk with me. He wasn't happy!" Rose laughed.

"Why not?" asked the Doctor, smiling like a little boy being read a bedtime story.

"Well, we were always friends," she reminded him. "We used to play out in the street with all the other kids from the estate, but I think he drew the line at walking home from school with me. He was in year nine at the time; already at Jericho Street Comprehensive, and I was still at primary school, in year six, so it didn't exactly make him look cool in front of all his mates! He was really grumpy to begin with!"

"But?" prompted the Doctor, realising that, in all the time that she had been traveling with him, he had never once asked Rose how she and Mickey had ended up together, and feeling rather guilty about it.

"He got over it," said Rose simply as they carried on walking again. "We ended up best mates. I used to go round to his Gran's and she'd make us fairy cakes and stuff."

"So, how did you…?"

"I didn't start seeing him until I was fourteen," said Rose, pre-empting his unfinished question. "We were just _friends_ and I'd never really thought about anything else until…"

Rose cleared her throat, embarrassed. Looking to her left, she noticed that although the Doctor was evidently still listening, he was staring resolutely at the ground as they walked.

"Then, one day he just asked me out and I said 'yeah'. Didn't really think anything of it," said Rose dismissively and shrugging nonchalantly as they cut through an abandoned car park.

"Where did he take you?" asked the Doctor curiously, as if checking that Mickey hadn't taken her anywhere he deemed unsuitable.

For a long time, Rose didn't answer him and they walked in silence, with Rose struggling to get the words round her tongue, wondering how best to say them. For her, at least, they were significant; significant and ironic, yet whether or not they held the same weight for the Doctor was hard to tell.

"He took me for chips," she said at last, with an air of regretful finality, looking the Doctor directly in the eye.

The Doctor, his head snapping up, held her gaze silently, and it was a while before either of them realised that they had stopped walking.

Friends first; the very _best_ of friends. They had spoken every day and had done everything together. They'd sat together, teasing each other over a cup of tea, putting the world to rights. They'd grown steadily closer, until, by the time Rose had realised that she'd loved him it was far too late to do anything about it. And their first date had been chips…

The parallels between the Doctor and Mickey were this time, painfully clear; they'd just happened in a slightly different order.

Like a slap in the face, Rose realised why she found it so difficult to think about Mickey… because she didn't want to face up to the fact that she'd long ago stopped thinking about him as her boyfriend, or to confront the realisation that she simply…didn't love him as much as she loved someone else. A certain banana-enthusiastic Time Lord.

Judging by the enlightened look in the Doctor's eyes and the stubborn way in which neither wanted to speak, nor look away first, the Doctor did at least have _some_ inkling of what she was thinking about.

The unmistakable tension between them was just like it had been on that chilly night so many months ago; half a year at least, when the Doctor had _nearly_, very nearly come close to speaking about his emotions. The man who kept everything under a mask of enthusiasm, recklessness and charm; who tried to fool the universe with his beaming smile and excitable outbursts had for once, relented and betrayed just how much Rose's human mortality bothered him.

It had scared her; listening to him tell her that he would always live on alone; the irony that he was a Time Lord, that he was one of the most powerful men in the entire universe, yet he couldn't stop those closest to him from dying; Time was one thing that he would _always_ run out of. She knew it was all true, of course she knew. She knew that one day she _would_ die, but she didn't like hearing it one bit; the thought of not being with the Doctor was chilling and unsettling and so she always did her utmost to ignore it.

"_You wither and you die,"_ he'd told her, his voice harsh and coarse as they'd stood outside the café, the night air ruffling through Rose's hair. _"Imagine watching that happen to someone you…"_ He hadn't finished his sentence; he'd been utterly unable to, and although she'd prompted him, he'd kept quiet, a suspense-filled awkward silence falling between them. Someone you…what? It felt like that now; Rose was silently _begging_ him to say something, anything at all.

"Good man," said the Doctor finally, sounding vaguely congratulatory, as if Mickey had went up slightly in his estimations. "Not such an idiot then! All the greatest men take their fair women to the chip shop!" he winked at her, looking decidedly perkier. "Did he pay?"

"Yes he did!" exclaimed Rose, quite forgetting their uncomfortable moment mere seconds before in her gravely indignant burst. "'Cause _he_ unlike _some_ people happens to be _polite_ and insisted on paying himself, like a gentleman!"

The Doctor smirked, pleased that even after everything she'd put herself through in the past forty minutes or so, she was at last getting back to her usual self.

"I thought we'd decided last night that I'm very gentlemanly?" said the Doctor, mock offended.

"You'll do," replied Rose, smiling, but her face fell again as they both looked at the little Rose, whose eyes had flickered slightly, as if she had been on the point of waking up, and she remembered what had originally led them into this discussion.

"Yeah; that me's all right now," confirmed Rose in a rather forced manner, getting back on subject and inclining her head towards the sleeping girl.

The Doctor nodded, seemingly satisfied as he looked down at the little Rose fondly for a moment, before his searing gaze fell once more on the older one to his right.

"What about you?" he said pointedly as he looked at her appraisingly. "_You_, you. Are _you_ all right?"

Rose considered him for a second, sighing and fidgeting with the sleeves of her denim jacket, rolling the cuffs back over her wrists before pulling them back down again.

Honestly? Honestly' no. She wasn't 'all right.' She felt drained and down-in-the-dumps; the same depressive, brooding mood she fell into whenever she and the Doctor returned from some distant planet of outer-reaching city when they hadn't quite been able to save everyone and they'd been forced to watch innocent people die, or when benevolent creatures and people they befriended ended up suffering because of _them_; because of the mysterious Time Lord and his human companion, and the sheer fact that they'd chosen that particular planet or far-flung settlement to satisfy their curiosity and passing fancies.

At times like those they wandered back to the TARDIS in silence; not talking not touching, just allowing themselves to wallow in their own feelings of guilt and self-loathing, to torture themselves about what they _could_ and _shouldn't_ have done before sitting down on opposite sides of the console room, not bothering to change out of their ruined, dirty clothes of to tend to whatever wounds they might have contracted; the hum of the TARDIS slow and mournful; the bleak, faint glow of the walls mirroring their shared mood.

"_Rose Tyler! You really are something special, aren't you?"_ That was what the Doctor had said to her, smiling appreciatively back at her one day; a couple of months before when they'd found themselves in the blistering heat of 22nd century Africa dealing with liquid gold, ancient art and weird mushrooms…At the time she'd just smiled back at him and made some sort of cheeky retort, but sometimes; on days like today she didn't feel special at all.

She felt cold and repulsed by the universe and the inextricable part she played in the defining events that spanned across the galaxy…when even the Doctor couldn't hope to cheer her up.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she lied, lightly; flashing him what she evidently thought was a convincing smile.

The Doctor simply blinked at her; he looked slightly offended, actually.

"No you're not," he said reproachfully, tutting at her as they at last reached Rose's street and she began to gape around like a small child who had never been in an enormous toy shop before; nosing around to see what had changed and what had stayed the same.

"Then why did you ask?" she said defensively, folding her arms across her chest like a displeased teacher and glaring at him as if she thought he were being purposefully stupid.

The Doctor gave her a weak but knowing smile, ignoring the frown on her face that was ironically making her look like the spitting image of her mum.

"Because I knew you'd say it," he said simply, as if it were blindingly obvious. It was to him, at least. Even if Rose was literally falling apart at the seams she would still stubbornly insist that she was as happy as Larry. Or Harry.

Rose simply shook her head at him impatiently, sucking in a deep breath as they neared the bashed-in entrance to her block of flats and holding open the rickety door for him to swan through with the little Rose in his arms, carrying her like a fragile parcel.

Annoyed, she pulled the door closed behind them, wrinkling her nose as the smell of urine, smoke and damp hit her from the bottom of the concrete staircase. It was a familiar smell; one she always associated with home, even though it wasn't a particularly pleasant one, though it had been a while since she'd last experienced it, seeing as she hadn't been home since their return trip from ancient Rome.

Now what a trip _that_ had been, she thought, unable to prevent her cheeks from going slightly pink as she remembered a certain _something_ that the Doctor had given her after she'd changed him back from a stone statue. Not that she'd given it any thought, though. At all. Really. None.

She turned to face the stairs; preparing herself for the long, calve-burning ascent that laid ahead of them up to her flat, but no sooner had she put her muddy trainer on the bottom step she stalled, confused.

"What?" she asked blankly, seeing that the Doctor, who was slightly ahead of her, had stopped walking and was standing frozen, still with the younger Rose in his arms, on the first landing beside the window sill, the pale sun shining through the grimy, water-stained window behind him, illuminating him like some sort of tall, pinstriped apparition staring down at her as if he'd never seen her before.

"What you staring at me for?" she said, an uncertain smile pulling at her mouth as she raised her eyebrows at him. Because he _was_! For some reason he had turned and was looking at her as if something fantastic had just occurred to him; his face betrayed awe, pride and disbelief.

"I'm not," he managed to get out, shaking his head as if trying to clear his ears of water. "Really, I'm not," he continued apologetically, an amused smile lighting up his face, seeing that she looked mildly self-conscious. "It's just…"

"What?" prompted Rose, nervously patting her wind-tousled hair down and raising a hand to her face, which she knew must be streaked with mascara. She had an extremely strong sense of déjà vu; only last night he'd looked at her in much the same way as they'd sat at that greasy café table, and although she couldn't honestly say that she was displeased about his attentions, she just wished she knew the reasons behind them

"You!" he laughed, tilting his head back; a boyish smile lighting up his face. "Just…_you_," he said, chuckling as he shifted his gaze to the chipped floor, attempting to straighten his features.

"Yeah?" she said, wondering what on earth he was finding so amusing.

"You're…" he paused, his smile fading slightly as sincerity filled his eyes. "Rose. You're extraordinary," he said very quietly, and very meaningfully; sincerity laden in his voice. A strange, unreadable emotion flooded across his face; one that caused her lips to part in surprise as she stared back at him, taken utterly aback.

"Just…" he shook his head slowly, as if unable to voice anything else. "Really, you are."

He merely looked at her, still with that indefinable emotion; one that was neither wonder nor awe, but a curious mix of both, before swallowing and carrying on up the stairs, the rubber soles of his Converse squeaking alternately.


	5. Chapter 5

Sherbet Fountain:

June West

**Disclaimer:** Same as always. June's new, though.

**Author's Note:** I'm prepared for you to _not_ like this chapter, because it's so different from the other chapters, but either way;let me know what you think and what you think I could improve upon. I must admit, this chapter (which I wrote on the plane!) _was_ going to be more from Rose and the Doctor's point of view, but I found myself sitting across from a woman just like 'June' and couldn't resist twisting it a bit.

* * *

"No, don't be giving him a second chance; throw him out, you dozy moo! Give _her_ a slap and all!" the woman cried at the TV, oblivious to the fact that they couldn't hear her. She shook her head in disgust at the sniveling, greasy-haired woman falling to pieces on _Trisha_ and dunked her biscuit in her tea with more force than was strictly necessary, before taking a noisy slurp.

The guests on _Trisha_ always managed to annoy her; some of them really did deserve a good wallop and a talking-to for being so utterly pathetic. Especially today's barmy lot. What on earth made people want to talk about their family scandals on national television? It was _shameful_, honestly. Entertaining; yes; as good as an episode of _Coronation Street _on a good day but entirely ridiculous. To go on, you'd have to have no sense of pride or self-respect! The woman from across the street had been on the year before, blabbering on about her son who had nicked her benefits money and ran off to Tenerife with his girlfriend.

The poor woman hadn't even been able to pop down to the post office to buy a _stamp_ without people gossiping about her, the poor thing. Mind you, she only had herself to blame; it was her own fault for going on. A woman like her; she really should have known better…

Today's topic was even worse. _My husband's had an affair with my sister. Now we're both pregnant!"_ read the white lettering across the bottom of the screen.

Still, she loved it, though and sat down to watch it every day with a cup of tea and two chocolate digestives after she'd finished the ironing. She was in her mid sixties and had just retired, having worked in a supermarket for the best part of thirty years. What else was retirement for, if not for the indulgence of watching a little bit of daytime TV now and again?

There was suddenly a sharp rap at the door and she got to her feet huffily, setting down her teacup with a clatter; displeased to be interrupted when she was in the middle of watching something.

"Who's this then, Max?" she said to her cat, bending down to give him a quick stroke as he came slinking round the corner and she shuffled to the front door, her backless slippers _thwacking_ against the busily patterned carpet.

She latched and unlocked the door, opening it a crack so she could peer out suspiciously. She came face to face with a slim, blonde woman wearing a denim jacket and smudged mascara, (carrying, oddly enough; a child's silver inflatable bag) who looked taken aback for a moment before smiling widely at her, her eyes crinkling. Oh hell's teeth; another one of those women selling Tupperware boxes and other tat. Or collecting money for charity…either way they were a pain in the neck. Banging on her door at all hours, talking nonsense. Sick to death of them, she was.

"I ain't interested in anything you're selling, darlin'," she told the woman grouchily, making to shut the door again, but the woman stopped her.

"Wait!" she pleaded. "June West?" she prompted, her eyebrows raised desperately, one hand on the door.

"Who's asking, then?" said June sharply, looking the woman up and down as if she were some dodgy sort of street beggar.

"I'm err…it's about Jackie Tyler," said the blonde woman apologetically. "Can we come in?"

"Oh my God, what's happened to her?" demanded June, her voice high-pitched and panicky.

Jackie Tyler was one of her closest friends; they'd lived next door to each other for a good nine years. She went to Jackie to have her hair done every month; a cut, a perm and an awful lot of gossiping. She could work wonders with scissors could Jackie Tyler and she was the chattiest, bubbliest woman in the world.

They went out for a drink together every Friday night; just the one down the pub and then they'd share a Chinese from the takeaway and go back to Jackie's flat to watch a nice bit of TV with a bottle of wine and put the world to rights, regardless of the age-gap between them.

Course, there was Rose as well; Jackie's little daughter, though seeing as she'd be starting Jericho Street Comprehensive in September, she didn't suppose she could carry on calling her 'little' for very much longer. A right pretty thing she was, too, even if she _was_ a bit on the quiet side. She looked after Rose whenever Jackie went out for any long periods of time; doing hair for weddings or special occasions.

Whenever Jackie had a full-day job, June was there to keep an eye on Rose and she was terribly fond of her. What with having two grown-up children who had both left home and no grandchildren, Rose was the closest thing June had to a granddaughter.

"No, no; she's all right," said the blonde woman quickly, waving her hands at her, as if attempting to calm an angry bull. "It's just, she's not in and…" she gestured helplessly to her right; to something June couldn't see.

Curiously, she opened the door properly to see a tall, dark-haired man in a suit and long brown coat carrying…

"Jesus alive! That's Rose!" she exclaimed, reaching out to touch her pale, green-streaked forehead, squeaking at the sight of her white, caked eyes. "What's happened to her? What's all this muck? Oh my God it's in her eyes! She could end up blind!" she demanded furiously, reeling out questions at the speed of a machine gun, looking from the man to the woman.

"Can we err, just get her in first?" asked the man pointedly. June's eyes snapped to him. He had a very pleasant voice, she thought; no trace of a Cockney accent, (unlike the blonde woman, who sounded as if she'd probably grown up in or very near to the area) but he was definitely from the South. Oxfordshire perhaps?

There was something about the mild, charismatic way in which he spoke which instantly captured her attention and she found herself doing exactly what he asked her. She gave them both appraising stares before standing aside begrudgingly for them to pass into her flat. He was a man with whom it would not be easy to argue, she thought; like one of those lawyer-type men. Whoever he was…

"What the hell's going on?" she asked angrily, stomping into the living room after the two strangers (the blonde had led the way somewhat unsurely looking round furtively as if she'd been there before and was checking to make sure everything was in its correct place) and planting her hands on her hips as she watched the tall man place Rose onto the crumb-covered faded pink settee, for want of anywhere else to put her. The living room was small and stuffy; holding only a settee, a patterned reading lamp and an archway leading directly through to the kitchen.

"And who are you?" she demanded, looking mistrustfully from the blonde woman, who was stood aimlessly between the door and the window, looking as out of place as a slice of ham in a fruit bowl, to the tall man bending over Rose.

"John Smith," said the tall man, straightening up and striding over to stand beside the blonde woman, holding out a leather wallet with an official-looking gold embossed Detective Inspector's badge to June, whose eyes widened. "And this is my colleague; Lewis," he said motioning to the woman beside him, who nodded and smiled reassuringly.

"You part of them plain-clothes police officers lot?" asked June sharply, her eyes raking over the blonde woman, who was dressed extremely casually and looked very unkempt; her hair was all over the place and her make-up was smudged. "Like in _The Bill_?"

For the briefest of nanoseconds, there was an unsure silence in which the tall man surreptitiously tilted his leather wallet round in order to look at it, as if checking to see if it held the right information and the woman's smile became rather fixed.

"Yeah, that's right," said the blonde woman confidently. 'Lewis,' the man had called her. Funny sort of name for a woman. Must be her surname, surely? She didn't look very much like a police officer, to be honest and neither did the tall DI man, but these days, who could go on appearances?

" What _happened_ to her?" she repeated forcefully, turning her attention back to the unconscious Rose sprawled on her settee, after shooting daggers at the two police officers, as if they were personally responsible for her state. "Why's she unconscious? Does she not need and ambulance? Is she even _breathing_?" she shrieked, getting herself worked up into half-hysteria, her ring-clad hands coming up to cover her mouth, her eyes beginning to fill up as she gazed at Rose, her expression pained.

She'd managed to get over the original shock of two police officers and _Rose_ turning up on her doorstep, but now she'd collected her wits, something snapped inside her, and seeing Rose lying there looking half-dead on a settee that she usually sat up in eating her tea off a tray with a glass of _Diet Coke_ watching _Art Attack_, or playing with her vast collection of _Polly Pocket_'s…it was enough to make her feel cold, and she was aware that she was beginning to lose her head.

"We err, we found Rose in the park," said the Lewis woman tentatively; placing the inflatable bag she was holding on the floor beside her. June crossed her arms across her chest, her eyes severe as she perched on the edge of the settee beside Rose's head, listening raptly. "She was all upset and crying and said that some boys had been throwing stuff at her and…"

"We thought it best to escort her home," said the DI, talking over his colleague as he stood by the windowsill with his hands in his pockets looking over at Rose, seeming to sense that June was in no mood to listen to his blonde, blabbering companion.

"I mean, she's _fine_," continued Lewis, shooting a thankless glance at him. "But she wasn't walking very well," she said sympathetically and shaking her head, looking regretful. "So we decided to carry her and she…dozed off."

June blinked in surprise; dozed off? She looked from the little girl lying beside her to the woman standing by the window, who seemed distinctly uncomfortable, as if she'd been hauled up to speak in assembly, about to say something biting and sarcastic about Rose 'dozing off' and Lewis' ignorance, bus she stopped herself. She swallowed her words, gazing intently at the blonde woman in the same way as one would look at someone you recognised from somewhere but could not place. She seemed…so familiar. She recognised that look…that unsure, wan expression. Who did she remind her of? This Lewis woman? Eeh now, who was she thinking of?

"It's her body's natural reaction to the shock," supplied the DI matter-of-factly, and as June tore her gaze away from Lewis, who had paled at June's staring, she saw that he looked vaguely panicky, as if he were desperate to distract June's attentions. "Certain circumstances, particularly ones of acute distress and fright can cause someone as young as Rose to err go into a temporal dormant state. It's perfectly normal," he assured her. June just looked at him blankly. It took her a while to work out what he meant. These high-up authority men never put things simply, did they?

"Best to let her sleep it off," chipped in Lewis, kindly. "Learnt that during our first week of _police training_; how to deal with post-shock trauma," she said, smiling placidly at June, but shooting a weighted look at her DI, as if to say, "For-heavens-sake-watch-what-you're-saying!" But June, who had nodded impatiently at Lewis' unnecessary advice was far too preoccupied with smoothing Rose's forehead and feeling, (incorrectly…as June's only medical knowledge came from watching _Casualty _and _ER_) for broken bones to notice.

"Anyway, she gave us her address but there's been no answer at her flat and our records have you down as her emergency contact," said Lewis, almost apologetically, watching as June attempted to rub off the strange white substance from Rose's face with a tissue she retrieved from up her sleeve with little effect.

"Well, I'm her babysitter, aren't I?" said June shortly, her knees giving an audible crick as she got to her feet and bustled into the kitchen. She reappeared a second later with a damp dishcloth, looking like a dinner lady on the warpath.

"Known her since she was tiny," she continued, crouching down by the settee and scrubbing at Rose's dirty face.

"Do you know where her mum _is_?" asked the DI concernedly, exchanging a quick glance with Lewis, who was watching June tend to Rose with an odd expression on her face.

"Out," said June waspishly, putting her top teeth over her bottom lip as she worked, dabbing at Rose's face gently. She laid the dishcloth over her arm, like one of those foreign waiter's after she'd finished, leaning forwards to inspect her handiwork as an artist might look at a newly-finished painting. Rose's face looked clean, if a little pink from the coarse fabric of the dishcloth, and her fringe was damp but the streaks of green and the white, flour-like substance had gone. "Got a booking at short-notice. Said she'd be back round half four-ish, mind."

She stood up and made her way over to the opposite end of the settee, to where Rose's feet were sticking out over the armrest. "Oh, I _knew_ this was going to happen sooner or later," she muttered to herself as she unfastened Rose's shoes and gently prised them off her feet. She looked up jerkily as a catfight broke out on _Trisha_, accompanied by lots of female shrieking and pathetic hair pulling, still holding on to Rose's scuffed black shoes.

"Give her a good hiding, love," she said encouragingly to the sniffy dark-haired woman on TV, for a moment quite forgetting the strangers in the living room, as well as the little girl she was fussing over.

The tall man cleared his throat, as if to remind her that they were still there.

"Ooh, sorry," squeaked June, now pulling off Rose's socks and diving to find the remote, which had evidently been knocked off the settee and onto the floor at some point. "See that bloke there, though?" she said, pointing at the screen. "Did the dirty on his wife with her own sister and now they're both up the duff!"

"That's lovely," said the DI in a deadpan voice, barely glancing at the TV screen. "About Rose," he said pointedly, discreetly elbowing Lewis before she could become too distracted by _Trisha._

"Oh yes! Well I _told_ Jackie, I did," shrilled June, remembering what she'd been about to say and looking rather indignant, waving the remote at him before using it to switch off the TV, where it flickered and crackled into the silence of a blank, black screen.

"I _told_ her something would happen with those boys if she wasn't careful. It _was_ those boys wasn't it? That horrible lot who follow her home?" _Now_ look what they've done to her," she said passionately, gesturing at the little girl lying on the settee, her breathing slow and snuffly.

"Been getting bullied for years, she has and still the school hasn't done anything about it! Had Jackie round here in _tears_ the other day! She blames herself; the poor love; says it's all her fault and that she should've taken better care of her! Madness, isn't it? I mean there's only so much you can do; you can't wrap them up in cotton wool, can you? Not that you'd know yourselves, by the looks of you, though."

She looked passively at them both. The woman; Lewis must be in her early twenties, and looking at her figure, it was fairly clear that she'd never had any children, and the DI, well he just didn't seem the _type_ to have a nice little family to go home to at the end of the day, somehow. Oh no; they were childless, the both of them.

Her impromptu rant, which made her sound like a fired-up pensioner complaining about the increase in the price of toilet roll, was met with silence by the two police officers, who gaped back at her, unsure of how to respond.

"Her mum blames herself?" said Lewis at last, who for some reason had turned faintly pink, her eyes flickering over Rose's messy hair and stained clothes.

"Yes," sighed June, clucking her tongue. "But don't you be looking like that!" she snapped, suddenly overly defensive, causing Lewis to jump. "It's nonsense! Jackie's a good mother to Rose! God knows; not many would have coped on their own but _she_ has and I reckon she's doing a good job, so don't you dare be bringing the Social round here!"

Lewis simply stared at her as if she'd suddenly started gabbling in a foreign language, shocked at her angry outburst, which had seemingly come out of nowhere.

"I…I didn't say anything about the…"

The DI grazed a hand against Lewis' arm to silence her. "Mrs. West," he said soothingly.

"Our only objective was to make sure that Rose returned home safely. I can assure you that the Social Services won't be getting involved at all."

June scowled, looking like she was sucking on a lemon. It was Lewis' tone that she'd objected to. Jumped-up madam. Probably relish the chance to report Jackie; to get yet _another _Powell Estate kid taken into care. They were all the same; these police women; nosy, no-good, snitching nuisances.

Despite her years, she was not like one of those weak-willed old women who were likely to be swindled out of their life-savings by a man selling double glazing, like Gladys on the floor above, and she was determined to show these two modern, quick-talking police officers that knocking on her door in the middle of _Trisha_ and dropping her off like a bag of shopping simply wasn't acceptable. Not by any means.

"Oh yes?" Then what _are_ you going to do, then; if you're not going to get the social involved?" she said, waving her dishcloth at them in annoyance. "What are you going to do about that scummy lot who've been making her life a misery, hmmm?" she challenged, looking from the DI to Lewis, like an icy headmistress surveying two unruly pupils.

The two police officers looked at each other awkwardly.

"We can talk to the school…get in touch with their parents," offered Lewis, evidently trying to sound optimistic, but aware that, with someone like June her words would go down like a lead balloon. "But other than that…they're too young to be arrested," she said regretfully.

"Too young!" cried June in outrage. "Oh yes; too young to be arrested, but old enough to attack her! It's disgraceful!" She glared at her two visitors, scrunching the dishcloth from hand to hand in obvious agitation; neither of who seemed particularly comfortable and were standing pressed close to the wall, as if they were attempting to blend in with the decidedly 70's style wallpaper, backing away from an attacking tiger.

She stood with her hands on her hips, breathing hard through her nose like an angry rhinoceros.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, though" she said after a brief pause, seizing on a sudden, ill thought-through brainwave. "I'll phone that boy's grandma! What's he called? The one with a face like a monkey's arse? Oh!" she pressed her knuckles to her head in deep thought. "That Todd menace! Yes that's it!" she crowed, clapping her hands in self-congratulation. "I've been wanting to have a word with Ethel Todd ever since she diddled me at the Bingo!"

She gave a short, barking laugh. A smoker's rasping chuckle that betrayed that, once upon a time she'd been on twenty a day.

The DI and Lewis both nodded, deciding to humour her; at loss at how to deal with this fiery, imposing woman swinging a dishcloth backwards and forwards.

"Yeah, you do that," said Lewis, smiling warmly at her, sounding genuinely encouraging, yet her DI pulled on his ear and shook his head in a 'Why-am-I-_here_?' sort of way.

June clicked her fingers at Lewis, obviously a housewife meaning business.

"You couldn't pop through and put my kettle on, could you? It's just through in the kitchen," she added unnecessarily. "Beside the window. I had a cuppa before but it'll be stone cold now, I s'pect," she said in a long-suffering tone, rearranging her cardigan around herself.

Lewis raised her eyebrows, giving a surprised smile, as if taken aback that she was being given orders, but nevertheless she nodded smartly and squeezed past her into the kitchen, shooting a smirk over her shoulder at her DI, which fortunately June didn't catch. She'd spotted a soup stain on her front, and was busy trying to rub it off with a licked thumb, much to the DI's chagrin.

"Bring me my clean washing in as well, would you, love? It's piled up on the draining board," she called after her, as an afterthought. She sounded like one of those women who sold fruit in the street on market days. The ones who bawled, 'Three punnits of cherries for a pound!' after you and left your ears ringing. Voices like a foghorn.

"I never go on the phone without a good cup of tea," she told the DI, who smiled, feigning interest as he rocked on the balls of his feet. "I mean, you never know who you're going to end up talking to, do you?"

She sighed; chest heaving and saving him from answering as Lewis came back through into the living room carrying a bundle of pastel-coloured t-shirts and flowery patterned elastic leggings with elastic round the bottom.

"Not much for a nine year old girl, is there?" she said, casting a critical eye over the pile of washing that Lewis was holding. "Just have to make the best of it, I suppose. Give them here," she ordered, taking the clothes from Lewis and rifling through them until she picked out a pale pink t-shirt. "Do as a dress, that will," she decided, shaking it out and holding it against Rose for size.

"Better than her uniform; yeah," agreed Lewis nodding approvingly.

There was suddenly a very heavy, awkward silence, in which nobody spoke, having quite run out of anything adequate to say. June looked pointedly at the small, ceramic clock above the TV and Lewis glanced at the DI, looking to follow his lead.

"Right then," he chirped at last, as Lewis knocked his arm with hers. "I think we'd better be going, Lewis. Can't be out chasing after muggers and vandals and whatnot if we're standing in Mrs. West's front room now, can we?" he said bracingly, looking from June to Lewis. " And I believe you still owe me a report from Stanchion House…"

"Yessir," replied Lewis dutifully, shifting as if beginning to make her way out.

"You falling behind on your paperwork, then?" nosed June as she shepherded them towards her front door. Oh but that was a stupid question. Of course she was probably behind on her paperwork; she was young; she probably went out drinking till all hours and then clocked into her shift with a hang-over…just like they did in _The Bill _last week.

"Erm…a bit, yeah," said Lewis, looking startled, smiling apologetically at June, (who sniffed disdainfully) and frowning at her DI. "Anyway; we'll be off now, then," she said, moving to open June's front door before pausing and turning back around to face her properly. "Thanks for looking after…Rose," she finished, waving her hand in the general direction of the living room.

June ruffled at that.

"Well why wouldn't I look after her? You see if I don't!" she trilled, sounding quite offended. "A good dose of _Calpol_ and she'll be as right as rain, she will," she chirped, with a glance back into the living room.

Lewis nodded once as if in clarification, giving June a small smile before she opened the door with a loud squeak before leading the way out of the flat and into the shabby hallway outside.

June stood at the doorway, like a human bulldog, watching as Lewis and the DI made their way towards the staircase. She stared at the retreating Lewis; at her messy blonde hair and scuffed trainers as she walked beside the tall DI. Oooh she still couldn't put her finger on what it was that she found so familiar about her…what was it? Her eyes? The way she walked? It was definitely something…but she couldn't think of what, of _who_ the blonde woman reminded her of…

"What's your mum's maiden name?" June shouted after her, poking her head around the door, before she could stop herself. Good grief. Standing shouting after people on the doorstep…she was like Vera Duckworth!

Lewis turned in surprise, as if unsure whether she was referring to herself or the DI.

"Harkness," she said clearly, with a slight glance at the tall man beside her, who had frozen at the top of the stairs. She looked appropriately wrong-footed and put out; confused as to why June wanted to know about her mum. "My mum's maiden name's 'Harkness'," she repeated unsurely, taking half across the hallway back towards June. "Why?"

June dithered, trying to back-pedal. "No matter, love," she said, giving a would-be-casual shrug. "'S just you look familiar, that's all and I…wondered if you were from round here. I know most people. Don't know no one called 'Harkness', though," she mused, sounding mildly disappointed.

She shook her head, as if to shake herself out of a daze and looked back at Lewis, who seemed slightly apprehensive for some reason.

"Right," said Lewis, evidently unsure of how to reply to that. "Ok…bye, then," she said, turning back round and beginning the long descent down the stairs, with one last glance back over her shoulder at June, the DI slightly in front.

"Ta ta," June mumbled to herself, still not being able to shake off the feeling that she _knew_ that woman from _somewhere_.

She tilted her head to the side, listening to the two sets of retreating footsteps on the stairs, and the low hum of voices as Lewis and the DI began to talk, quietly. Discussing the downfalls of the Powell Estate, probably; like those two uniformed officers who had come to take a statement from Mrs. Next Door's husband about some stolen power tools. Very rude, they'd been. One of them had suggested that the estate would be vastly improved if they let the local yobs run riot with steamrollers and bulldozers, while the other had laughed, unkindly.

She didn't like the police, if she was being honest. They were like politicians; said one thing, then did another. Lewis and the DI man…well they hadn't done much to convince her otherwise, had they?

"What a _pair_," she chuntered, as she pulled the door shut behind her with a loud bang. Too young to be arrested, indeed! A chocolate fireguard would be far more useful. Still, that was the police for you; they'd do anything to get out of doing their job! Really, what had Blondie and DI fancy-pants done? Picked Rose up and brought her home like some sort of dead goose…not much!

Considering that, actually, it was a good thing that they'd had the decency to bring her home; who knows what would have happened if she'd been left in the park? The haunt of gangs and dealers…oh no; it wasn't worth even thinking about! Not for a second!

She was glad that Rose was safe and sound, anyway, and she'd leave it at that.

This DI Smith and Lewis, though…well she'd never have believed they were police officers if she hadn't seen his ID wallet. Just what sort of idiots did the Met employ these days? Oh, it was never like this in _The Bill_…

She shuffled back through into the living room agitatedly, feeling thoroughly bad-tempered about her unwanted visitors, but her face softened when her gaze fell on Rose; lying there on the settee like a discarded doll. Bless her. It would be a shame to wake her, but she couldn't let her stay like that, could she? All damp and cold; she'd catch her death!

Very gently, with the expert tenderness that only a mother could have, she sat on the edge of the settee again and stripped off Rose's school uniform, leaving it in a heap on the floor, and pulled one of her own pink t-shirts over Rose's shoulders, bundling her arms into the sleeves.

"Here you go, my darling," she cooed as she finished, pulling the cotton fabric down over Rose's knees as she mumbled something in her sleep and rolled over, but still didn't wake up.

'Let her sleep it off', that Lewis woman had said, and for all she seemed like one of those types that were more beauty than brains, her caution did at least seem sensible. What was there that a good sleep _couldn't_ solve?

No, no; she'd leave Rose there to have a little lie-down to put herself to rights. Would she be warm enough, though; dressed as she was in just an over-large t-shirt?

Dubiously, June retrieved a crocheted wooly blanket from underneath the settee,( the one she kept for when it was particularly cold during the winter and she didn't want to chance putting her heating on in case her electricity bill came in too high) and draped it over Rose; just in case.

Stooping, she picked up Rose's discarded uniform, making a face at the slime stained jumper, damp skirt and muddy socks and carried the disgusting articles through into the kitchen, between her thumb and first finger. She dumped them into the sink, which she filled with hot soapy water and left them to steep. Goodness, it had been _years_ since she'd had to wash things by hand! Oh dear… it was like being in the 50's all over again!

She sighed to herself as she poured water from the warm kettle, (that Lewis woman _had_ at least been good for something) into a red _Kit Kat _cup and busied herself with making the tea. She liked it extremely weak with lots of sugar so that it took on the same sort of colour as chicken soup and left mounds of clear sugar crystals at the bottom, as well as a thin film of sugary scum all up one side.

Noisily, she stirred in three heaped teaspoons of sugar and carried it over to the wobbly kitchen table, covered as it was in the remains of her lunch. A dirty bowl holding the remains of cold tomato soup lay beside a plate of chewed crusts and orange peel messily wrapped up in kitchen roll. She pushed them to one side lazily, vowing that she'd clear them away properly later and sat herself down comfortably, reaching for the phone, which was hanging on the wall.

Out of habit, she wrapped the cord several times around her hand and pressed the receiver to her ear with her shoulder before punching in the number of one of her best friends on absolute autopilot. It was a number she called at least four times a day.

"Cathy, it's me," she said in her usual no-nonsense manner as soon as she heard her friend pick up. "Listen, have you got…oh has he? Oh that's good isn't it? Good for him! Eeh how old's he now? He's not? Seventeen? Mind! Well make sure he uses his discount, won't you? I'm telling you, they do Madeira cake to die for; it's fluffy and light as anything…yes…mmh-hmm. No, no I was just wondering if you had Ethel Todd's phone number? No, not in ages…oh, good…what's that now? Oh I know…I wouldn't stand for it. Hold on a minute, love, would you?"

She was distracted from their usual gossiping, with Cathy telling her all about how her grandson had managed to get himself a Saturday job at _Marks_ _and Spencer_, and June herself trying to get a word in edgeways about what had happened to Rose Tyler and exactly _why_ she needed Ethel Todd's phone number, by a movement in the street outside the window.

Still attached to the phone, she stood and made her way round the table to the kitchen window, above the clothes-filled sink, and pulled aside the white net curtain, upsetting the colourful row of washing up liquid, hand soap, bleach and kitchen cleaner bottles that were lined up on the windowsill as she did so, to look out.

Nosiness had always been a particular fault of hers; she was forever peering around curtains and even through letterboxes to watch the goings-on in the estate. Well, it filled in half an hour or two, didn't it? Being nosy wasn't a crime, and plus; it gave her something to talk about on the phone, didn't it? When Mrs. Whoever in flat 42 had chucked her husband out, she'd been there at the window, gawping as she'd emptied his clothes out into the street from the balcony, like a scene from _Eastenders_. And then when there'd been that fight in the car park between those two teenage girls; she'd watched that, too; tutting and shaking her head at every slap.

Her kitchen window looked out onto the back of the Powell Estate. The view was grey and dreary; all concrete buildings and weed-strewn pavements. Normally, the only people who frequented that area at this time of the day were the vagrants and the homeless. It didn't become a hive of activity until nightfall; when all the estate's truly shady characters came out. Dealing and selling their stolen goods. Yet now, two people emerged from round the corner and ambled right into her viewpoint. These two figures were what had captured her attention, and set her gossip alarm bells ringing, pricking her natural nosiness. They were close enough so that, if they were to turn around she would be able to see their faces and read their expressions; get some inkling as to what they were doing; yet they had their backs turned to her.

She recognised them both; a man and a woman. The man was tall and thin, with a shock of messy dark hair, wearing a suit and a long brown overcoat, whereas the woman was blonde- bleach blonde by the looks of it; she could definitely do with a bit of a trim; it was at that awkward, untidy stage in-between cuts, and she was dressed in black trousers and a battered denim jacket. Behold; DI Smith and his female colleague; Lewis. Again.

But what were they _doing_? They were heading in entirely the wrong direction for the police station; that was towards the city center, and they didn't seem to be in any hurry, either. They were just meandering along, as if they had all the time in the world. Surely police officers weren't being paid to take a nice little stroll?

She frowned as DI Smith and Lewis came to a halt beside a bin, overflowing with crisp packets, beer cans and take-away cartons and turned to look at each other properly. What were they _talking_ about, June wondered, leaning her head against the glass in a better attempt to see. Oh, if only she could lip-read!

The woman; Lewis; she looked well… not upset, exactly, just a little bit unsure and perhaps a bit lost, like a child, and she was looking up at her DI with doe-eyes. Oooh, the waterworks would be turned on, soon! Playing the overly sensitive policewoman card, was she? Hmmm, what for? She was never after her DI, was she? Mr. Skinny?

"Ooh, hang about," June murmured darkly, as the DI suddenly pulled her into a very tight, very close hug, lifting her up off the ground slightly so that her trainer-clad feet were left dangling, and she hugged him back, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Well, really! Public displays of affection always made her feel slightly nauseous, but on the job? Disgusting! She tutted and gave a long-suffering sigh as they slowly broke apart, after standing entwined for a good few minutes and exchanged smiles before resuming their walk across the estate, this time holding hands like two lovesick and dippy teenagers.

Office romance. _Had _to be. No wonder she'd claimed to be behind on her paperwork...

She watched them walking until they turned the corner beside the garages; the doors of which were rusty with cracked paint, and they were out of sight. Yet before they disappeared completely, June saw Lewis rest her head against the DI's shoulder as they walked. Now, if they weren't _together_ then June was a fire-breathing squirrel. Well, as together as their job would allow; sooner or later they'd be found out…somehow, she didn't think the police were supposed to wander around hand-in-hand on their patrols.

"That'll not last long," she said skeptically, quite forgetting that she was still on the phone.

"Oh no, no; I don't mean your grandson's job," she placated her friend, who had shrilly leapt to his defence, like the ever-doting grandmother she was. "No, I'm talking about these two police officers in the street…just had them round at my flat, haven't I? And now they're holding hands and hugging in the street like nobody's business! No…I'm sure it's not allowed…definitely against policy. I should write and complain to their superintendent, shouldn't I? Disgraceful is what it is…oh no; they were here about Jackie Tyler's little girl. S'why I need to speak to Ethel Todd; lazy moo that she is…well, little Rose Tyler turned up on my doorstep today with two police officers and…

* * *

It was a good hour and a half later that a very dry-mouthed June finally got off the phone, having twice complained bitterly about the behaviour of the police; exchanged opinions on this afternoon's quality of _Trish_; discussed what the _TV Guide_ had printed about tonight's episode of _Eastenders, _and most importantly, given Ethel Todd a good ear-wagging about the way she was bringing up her awful grandson.


	6. Chapter 6

Sherbet Fountain:

Daniel's Punishment

**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to me. Except Daniel Todd. But then, I'm not too fussed on him, anyway.

**Author's Note:** For anyone still reading this (after about 100 years!), and who hasn't given up all hope; thank you! I'm sorry it has been so long since my last update. The last review I received caused the guilt to kick in; resulting in the following 23 pages; so thank you for sprurring me on! :) Because it _has_ been a while, I'm really uncertain about this, so more than ever I need your views and opinions-just so I know how I'm doing. Whatever you think of it, let me know!

* * *

Oh, Rose knew that look.

Her mouth twisted up into an amused half-smile, half-smirk as she looked at the Doctor, trying to compress her laughter. It was the 'look' she'd seen on his face when he'd told her that her mum had slapped him after he'd brought her home an entire year late. A cross between mortification that he'd been put in his place by a human, (and one who thought that Aberystwyth was in Scotland at that) embarrassment that he'd been told off in the first place, when usually he did exactly what he liked and refused to answer to any form of authority, and wounded pride.

It was fair to say that one of Jackie's infamous slaps had dented his self-assured ego, and he looked just as bemused and slightly horrified now as he had done _then._ Except this time, his pet lip and sheepish expression weren't gracing the features of a rugged man with shorn hair and electric blue eyes, but one with chiseled, angular cheekbones, a straight nose and fantastically floppy dark hair. Lovely, _soft_ hair, mused Rose, her thoughts straying slightly as she remembered fiddling with it the night before as he'd carried her back to the TARDIS…

Yes, she decided, her lip curling at the furrow in his brow as he frowned; same expression; same man; different face. He looked the same as he had done when they'd been banished from the British Empire by Queen Victoria, as if he were recovering from being splatted across the face with a wet kipper.

"_She_ was," he began in a low voice, shaking his head darkly, his eyebrows knitting together.

"Hard work?" suggested Rose, smiling with her tongue poking through her teeth. "Bolshy?"

"_Terrifying_," he admonished, emphasizing the 'T' and rubbing the back of his neck.

Rose laughed, tipping her head back at the sky and rolling her eyes.

They were sitting side by side on a low brick wall outside Rose's block of flats. Green, furry moss grew between the cracks in the bricks, like sponge and large yellow dandelions poked up at the base of the wall. Loose bits of gravel, tiny shards of broken glass from shattered bottles and cigarette stubs were heaped on the ground beneath their feet. It was where the estate's rougher teenagers gathered at night to swill stolen beer and swap the stuff they'd shoplifted.

Rose remembered that the wall always used to be covered in scratchings and pen scrawlings like, 'Harra woz here 1995.' She looked down at them now, reading the swearwords and rude lyrics beside her legs; she recognised most of them, actually. She used to play hide and seek behind the wall and read what was written, giggling quietly whilst she was all curled up in a ball, determined not to be found. That was, until her mate Shareen fell and got glass stuck in her palm and it became all infected.

Now, however, after being shooed out of her neighbour's flat like pestering children, the Doctor and Rose had hurried down the smelly staircase, hardly daring to say anything until they reached the entrance hall and burst out of the double doors, tittering and exchanging guilty smiles as they emerged outside into the late afternoon sunshine and perched themselves on the wall.

"What?" said the Doctor, looking wounded and confused as Rose continued to laugh at him, tickled by his expression. "What's funny?"

"You!" she admitted, pursing her lips to stop herself from giggling, but still a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "You walk around as if you own the universe; as if nothing can frighten you, and yet here you are; intimidated by June!" she teased, putting her elbows on her thighs and leaning forwards to rest her chin on her hands, looking sideways at him.

"She waved a _dishcloth_at me!" protested the Doctor. "No wonder she's mates with your mum-they're as mad as each other!"

Rose blinked and raised her eyebrows, only half-pretending to find this insulting.

"Oi," she said curtly, narrowing her eyes at him. "Leave off my mum."

The Doctor grinned at her in a manic sort of way and kept quiet. When it came to Jackie, Rose was fiercely protective, and the Doctor knew better than to push it.

Although she found her mum's and the Doctor's bickering quite funny, she made it clear that there was a line between them which neither of them were allowed to cross and thankfully, they both adhered to it. Which was just as well, really.

"I'm not saying anything," the Doctor promised, trying to feign innocence, yet Rose still looked half-stern,

"And June's really not that bad, you know," she continued, absent mindedly running a fingertip beneath her lower lash line, which felt tight and crusty, her lashes still damp. "She doesn't always think before she speaks but she's fine; her bark's worse than her bite and…she really used to look after me," she finished wistfully, craning her neck round to look back at the block of flats.

The Doctor's eyes softened at her tone and he too, took a quick glance back at the flats looming behind them; grey, rundown and uninteresting.

"_Used_ to?" he repeated quietly, detecting a trace of gloominess in her voice and looking at her inquiringly.

"Yeah; she moved over to Canada when I was twelve," said Rose flatly, rubbing the tips of her thumb and first finger together to try and shift the black residue that her mascara had left behind. "Went to live with her daughter; there was nothing for her, here," she said despondently, remembering with a pang that she'd once told Mickey exactly the same thing.

Oh, it had been ages ago; when the Doctor had sent her home from the Gamestation. She'd been frightened at the time. Her hands had shook, even though her voice had been firm and resolute; she'd felt sick with anxiety; desperate to get back to the Doctor, even though she knew that doing so could ultimately lead to her dying.

Of course, she had convinced herself that she was going back to save him…but deep down? She hadn't allowed herself to hope that absorbing the Time Vortex would work; she'd just been hedging her bets. No…deep down her reasoning had been that she was going to die at some point, and that she would rather 'go down fighting' with the Doctor; rather die happy and at the side of man she…well, yeah…_loved_, than old and miserable in her bed at eighty-six. Or whatever. She just…couldn't let the Doctor die on his own. It was better with two, it really was…

The _look_ on Mickey's face as she'd said it…she'd broken his heart. Her words had killed him. She'd seen it in his eyes; the accusatory hurt, bitterness, disappointment, betrayal, like that of an abandoned child; the agonising realisation that he would always be second best, that no one could ever matter to her more than the Doctor…

Rose's stomach gave a squeeze of guilt and she inwardly cringed with shame, before dismissing her thoughts, forcing herself back to the present.

"She had a son, called Rory," Rose explained at the Doctor's questioning glance, her cheeks still faintly pink at the emotions her memories had evoked. "But he's inside," she finished, shrugging, as if it were not a topic she wanted to linger on.

"Well he is _now_," she said as an afterthought after a short pause, looking around at the ugly buildings either side of her. "In 1997. He's only been in a year. Dunno where he is now, though," she mused, reaching up and toying with the silver hoop dangling from her left ear. " I mean _now_…now. My time," she gabbled, letting out a short sigh of frustration. "My real time," she elaborated stiltedly, clearly getting annoyed with herself, as if she couldn't pinpoint exactly _when_…what _year _she was really from…

"All right, don't hurt yourself," chided the Doctor, looking amused at her efforts.

"Timey Wimey!" they said together, although whereas the Doctor grinned enthusiastically into the words, his voice going high, as if he were bringing up an old shared joke they had once found hilarious, Rose said it with a sort of bored, long-suffering,'Timey-Wimey-is-your-answer-for-everything-but-you're-so-endearing-with-it-that-I'll-indulge-you' sort of way.

They smirked at each other, though Rose's faded as she blew out air through her cheeks. "Nah," she mused after a while. "He's probably back in, knowing him." She stretched down to pick up a sharp, chalky stone from beside her feet and began scratching the wall with it, lightly.

"What do you mean 'inside'?" said the Doctor, looking confused. "Inside where?"

"_Inside_, inside," said Rose pointedly with a raised eyebrow, as if she thought the Doctor was being particularly slow.

"In the _clink_," she embellished, seeing that the Doctor continued to look at her blankly. "On holiday at Her Majesty's Services?" she tried hopefully.

The Doctor's expression was as if someone had just told him that the consumption of bananas had been made illegal.

"He's in _jail_," said Rose impatiently, emphasizing the word 'jail' loudly, as if she were speaking to someone who didn't understand English.

"Ohh," said the Doctor, light dawning in his eyes. "Just say that, then," he grumbled mutinously, like a child who had been teased.

Rose laughed again, shaking her head at him before she dropped her gaze and returned to her task at hand again; frowning slightly in concentration as she scratched letters into one of the rust-coloured bricks.

The Doctor watched her for a moment, her head bent, scratty-looking blonde hair with dark, brassy roots falling as a curtain over her face.

"That's vandalism," he pointed out dryly.

Rose looked up at him, tucking her hair behind her ear, a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Then _report _me," she challenged him, chucking the stone away and grinning up at him with her tongue between her teeth. "_Detective Inspector_."

The look on the Doctor's face was priceless. His mouth fell open, as if he were not entirely sure how to respond to this, or even, if he'd heard her correctly. But then, an equally playful twinkle sparked in his eyes and he shot her a disarming, full-watt grin.

"I would have expected an officer of the law, such as yourself, PC _Lewis_, to show more respect for public property," he quipped, gently knocking her with his shoulder.

Rose elbowed him back. "Sorry, Guv." She bit her lip, her eyes full of laughter. "You going to arrest me?"

The Doctor winked at her. "Oh yes, I should think so," He grabbed both of her hands and hauled her up. "Full police escort and everything."

Rose stood and brushed dust and muck from the wall off her jeans before taking his proffered arm. They walked in companionable silence for a few minutes as the Doctor led them round the side of Rose's block of flats, dodging litter and dogs' poo, back in the direction of the TARDIS.

"So, what did her son do, to end up 'inside,'" asked the Doctor curiously, saying 'inside' in a perfect imitation of Rose's Cockney accent.

Rose smirked and pointed at him. "Watch it, mister," she said mock warningly. "I dunno all the details," she confided hesitantly, staring at the ground as they walked. "They were really careful about what they said in front of me, but from what I _did_ hear," she pressed on thoughtfully, "He apparently held up some taxi-driver bloke with a kitchen knife and demanded he gave him his money," she said quickly, as if she thought it would be better for the Doctor to hear everything all at once.

She had been about eight or nine when she'd come in from playing_ Bulldog_ outside with the rest of the children her age on the estate, to find a red-eyed, sniffling June sitting at the kitchen table with her mum, shaking so badly that the cup of tea in her hand had been in danger of toppling over. Both women had looked up, startled as Rose had burst in through the door nattering on happily about Shareen's new _Tamagotchi_.

Her mum had looked so worried and distressed, yet sympathetic at the same time, covering June's hands with her own, and June herself had been terribly pale, looking absolutely beside herself with grief and shame. Rose remembered the prickle of fear that had risen in her stomach as she'd walked in on them; a horrible, anxious feeling that something really bad had happened…

"Rose," her mum had said gently, giving her a reassuring smile that did not quite disguise the too-shininess of her eyes. "Why don't you go round to Mickey's grandma's and I'll come and pick you up after tea, yeah?"

Rose had nodded mutely, looking unsurely from her mum to June, like a scared little mouse, before running as fast as she could out of the flat. That night, as her mum dried her hair for her after her bath and tucked her up in bed, she'd lingered a little longer than usual, playing with one of Rose's soft toys; twisting the button nose of a fluffy tiger round and round in a preoccupied fashion.

"Sweetheart," she'd said, sighing softly, as if she didn't know how to begin. "June's son has had to go away for a little while and she's a bit upset. You're a big, brave, clever girl now and I'm _very_ proud of you so I know you won't…but just in case. When you go round, I don't want you to ask her about it, or mention him, ok darling? Not unless she tells you. All right?"

Her eyes wide and subdued in the dark, one arm curled around her pillow, feeling a slight dip in the mattress where her mum was sitting, Rose had nodded and mumbled 'Right,' not understanding, but not wanting to know, either. Not if it would upset June or her mum, and she never wanted to upset either of them…

Her mum had leaned in and kissed her cheek, her hair tickling Rose's forehead, smelling of perfume and cooking and just so…motherly and safe. At that point, Rose had been unable to even imagine her ever leaving her mum. It had caused a painful lump to build up in her throat, and a wet, salty tear to run silently out of the corner of her eye and soak into the pillow as her mum snapped off her bedroom light and closed the door over softly…

"He sounds charming," said the Doctor pleasantly, his shoulder brushing hers as they walked.

"What?" asked Rose distractedly, her mind a million miles away, stuck firmly in the past. "Oh…yeah," she said hurriedly, trying to pretend that she had been listening. "Yeah, I didn't know him that well, but June always reckoned that he was wrongly accused, I think…S'why she doesn't like police officers; could you tell?" she probed, smiling wryly as she thought of June's sheer tactlessness.

"Well she was just so discreet…"

"No one round here likes the police, though," reasoned Rose loyally. "Never have, never will," she said, ignoring the Doctor's sarcasm and blowing out air through her cheeks.

They cut across a near-empty gravel car park, where a man who appeared to be in his early twenties lay on his back underneath a battered looking car, the left hand door of which was blue, a completely different colour to the rest of the red bodywork.

Rose cleared her throat and tapped the Doctor's arm urgently. "Detour, I think," she said quietly, causing the Doctor to do an about-turn as she pulled him quickly and forcefully in the other direction, their footsteps grinding into the gravel.

"Why?" asked the Doctor keenly, peering over his shoulder as they retreated from the car park and headed back towards the main blocks of flats.

"He's not very nice," said Rose darkly, looking back over her shoulder as well, as if to check that they weren't being followed. "Rather not walk past him, thanks."

The Doctor puffed his chest up, looking indignant and quite ruffled. "_He_ didn't pick on you as well, did he?" he said dangerously, whipping his head round to glare at the man, as if he would have liked nothing more than to march over to him and re-align the neurons of his brain with his sonic screwdriver.

"No, no, nothing like that," Rose assured him quickly, rubbing his arm, touched at his chivalry. "He's just…a bit of a druggie. Quite violent. Keeps a gun under his car," she muttered.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows, as if to consider this, and exhaled. "Well," he reasoned. "He's just lying there. He's not actually doing anyone any harm...I think it would be rude to disturb him, yeah."

Rose laughed as the Doctor rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

"Weird that the psychic paper told her we were police officers though, isn't it?" pondered Rose, thinking aloud, the thought having just struck her. "I mean if she doesn't like the police..?" she trailed off and swiped back a bit of hair that had worked itself into her mouth.

"Mmh," agreed the Doctor, pulling the psychic paper from his pocket and giving it a quick glance before shoving it back in, stroking it absent-mindedly with his thumb. "I don't know what else it could have shown her…how else we could have explained why we were bringing home a younger version of your rather brilliant self," he admitted, tapping her on the nose, fondly. " Producers from _Trisha_, perhaps?" he said, grinning cheekily.

"Probably."

They turned a corner so that they were directly behind Rose's block of flats, towards the edge of the estate. If she looked up, Rose would probably be able to see her bedroom window. She used to look out of the window when she was little, when she should have been asleep. She used to sit, crossed-legged on her bed in her pyjamas with her duvet wrapped around her shoulders, watching all the fights and joyrides, peeking out whenever she saw blue flashing lights which shone in through her window.

That had been before she'd read Roald Dahl's the _BFG_ and became so frightened that she was going to be snatched from her bed by giants, that she never sat by the window at night again, nearly suffocating herself nightly, by burrowing completely under the covers with her pillow clamped over her head…

Rose chewed on the inside of her cheek, her eyes pained and preoccupied as she walked. An image of June; untidy looking, boisterous and shrill, yet so _caring_ kept popping up in her mind's eye, brandishing a dishcloth. She'd spoken to her so harshly; snapped at her, even, and she'd never done so before. True, June hadn't realised that it had been her beloved _Rose_ in front of her, albeit a grownup one, but it had left Rose feeling…quite shaken, like a child who had been told off, as if she were still ten years old.

Her words were still ringing through her ears, banging off her skull.

_"Had Jackie round here in tears the other day! She blames herself; the poor love; says it's all her fault and that she should've taken better care of her!"_

She felt a bit sick; her stomach was in knots, with the sort of nervous energy you get before a big exam. Early summer though it was, she felt quite chilly and shaky, and there was something caught at the back of her throat that no amount of swallowing seemed to be getting rid of. Her cheeks felt uncomfortably warm and there was a too-familiar prickle beneath her eyelids.

She hadn't known, how could she have known that her mum had blamed herself? That her mum had thought that it was all her fault that she had been bullied? That she'd felt like a lousy mother? Why had she thought that? How could she have possibly thought that? Had she been carrying this feeling of guilt, guilt that she had no need to feel for all these years?

When the bullying had stopped, Rose had just carried on, had just tried to forget about it; blocked it up at the back of her mind and had pretended that everything was fine; she had never spoken about it to her mum. What had that done to her? Her mum must have been just as upset as her, and yet she'd never even given her a second thought…She felt utterly terrible.

"Rose?" said the Doctor, sounding slightly wary as he looked over at her, no doubt noticing that she was staring resolutely to her right as they ambled along the chewing-gum covered path, with weeds in between the paving slabs, her head turned completely away from him.

The Doctor too, looked to the right, searching for whatever held Rose's fixed attention, but there were only graffitied walls and boarded-up windows of obviously empty council flats. She either couldn't bear to look at him, or she was trying to hide her face, and since he couldn't think of anything he had done (well, recently) that might cause her to be upset with him, other than his being rude about a dear family friend…he assumed that it was the latter.

"I'm fine," said Rose calmly, at the same time as the Doctor asked her if she was all right. It was as if she'd felt his concern, pre-empted his question. There was an awkward pause, and Rose still didn't turn her head round.

The Doctor, very quietly made a disbelieving noise but said nothing, knowing that she had an inability to keep quiet when something was really bothering her.

"It's just," she said hesitantly, proving the Doctor to be right, her voice wobbling slightly. "I never knew that my mum blamed herself. I never realised that she felt it was all her fault," she said quietly, sounding both horrified and ashamed.

"You heard what June said," she accused him, sniffing, coming to a standstill beside a smelly, overflowing bin. She could see the remains of a McDonalds Happy Meal lying on top of a stained copy of The Sun. " She said that my mum had been to see her in…in tears and I didn't know! I didn't think to check if she was ok," she squeaked furiously, her voice breaking and she blinked back angry tears, willing herself not to cry again.

"I can't believe she thinks she could have taken better care of me!" she protested, gripping the sleeves of her denim jacket, tightly. "She always looked after me…she's such a good mum…I should have picked up on it…I should have asked her…I should have realised," she implored him, her eyes wide, shining and helpless. She looked extraordinarily young and vulnerable.

"Rose," began the Doctor, interrupting her self-directed rant, but she paid no attention to him, continuing to berate herself, staring moodily at the ground as if she wished it nothing but ill, pulling at the cuff of her jacket with tears in her eyes. Until the Doctor grew tired of waiting for her to be quiet and pulled her to him in one fluid motion, his arms going tightly around her, and lifting her off her feet.

Rose gave a short intake of breath, for a moment taken aback at being so abruptly stopped. The Doctor had rendered her literally speechless, but she ignored any weak feelings of indignation and wrapped her arms around his neck, secretly pleased. He swung her once from side to side before setting her back down on her feet, but did not let go of her.

"Quite enough of that, thank you very much," he chirped good-humouredly in her ear, his breath tickling her neck.

"What? Talking?" tutted Rose, pressing her cheek against his shoulder, which felt very warm, even if the fabric of his coat was rough and coarse.

"Blaming yourself," he corrected her gently, rubbing her back. "It's against the law," he said matter-of-factly, and Rose could feel him smiling as he said it.

"Whose law?" she whispered, grinning too as she turned her head slightly and deliberately fluttered her eyelashes against the Doctor's jaw, tickling him. She giggled as he squirmed and let go of her.

"My law," he said authoritatively, holding her by the shoulders, attempting to look stern and imposing, but his eyes were crinkled.

Rose smiled. Her make-up desperately needed reapplying; there were tear trails down her foundation; the paler colour of her skin peeking through the beige powder, and her mascara had smudged, leaving dark, wet rings around her blood-shot eyes. It was evident that she had been crying, yet her pained expression had melted.

The warmth in her eyes was completely genuine as she gazed intently up at the Doctor, thanking him in a mere look and a curve of her lips for cheering her up in the way that only he knew how. He didn't have to use overly dramatic gestures and long reams of empty, artificial words for her to know that he cared about her. It was the little, quirky details, like grabbing her in a hug to shut her up and his gentle teasing that really mattered to her.

And she adored him for it.

The Doctor nodded once in simple acknowledgement of her look of gratitude, seemingly quite pleased that neither of them had had to say anything. He quirked one eyebrow up at her and held out his hand.

Rose took it and they grinned at each other happily.

"I don't quite believe I'm about to say this," said the Doctor carefully, as they carried on walking, sounding both equally amused and full of dread. "But then, I couldn't believe it when I began a sentence with 'It is a truth universally acknowledged,' and directed it at Jane Austen….and look how that turned out," he said distastefully, wrinkling his nose.

"Now she was a scary woman and a half," he said adamantly, baulking at the memory. "What?" he asked defensively, his voice going all high-pitched again, seeming to quail under the sardonic look Rose was giving him. "I was going through a pompous phase," he said indignantly, as if that excused him somehow.

Rose laughed. "And by 'going through' you mean got there and decided to stay, yeah?" she said innocently, digging him in the ribs to show she was joking.

"Haha," he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes at her. "No, what I was going to suggest," he pressed on, looking pensive. "A trip back to see your mum, what do you reckon?" he said seriously.

Rose had the sudden urge to both throw her arms around the Doctor and to burst into tears. She felt a warm tingle of relief and contentment, like sinking into a hot bubble bath, settle in her stomach, and a jolt of excitement leap in her chest.

She reached across her body with her right hand to squeeze the Doctor's arm, just above their joined hands. "Yeah," she said softly, a beam plastered across her face.

She briefly rested her head against the Doctor's shoulder as they reached a clump of garages, where the estate's dodgier characters temporarily housed their stolen goods. They smelt strongly of oil and urine, and she's been told to stay well away from them when she was younger. "Yeah, go on, then."

The Doctor flashed her a dazzling smile as they rounded the corner, obviously pleased with himself. They turned onto a wide back alley. On both sides were the backs of houses; industrial-sized bins pouring out onto the back lane.

There was a child's plastic outdoor playhouse at the end of one garden, and an expensive-looking stunt bike abandoned outside another. The tinkling of advert music on the TV came drifting out of one of the open windows, yet all the houses were identical. The same dirty brickwork, dilapidated state and cramped layout. It was like walking down a street in 1960's Birmingham.

Then, just ahead of them, from around a high wall with a trim of barbed wire across the top, ambled four boys, jostling each other as they walked, two by two. They were wearing black shell suits, all of them. All looked dozy and oafish; more brawn than brains. Especially the chubby, gorilla-like boy lolloping at the front with a pudding-basin haircut and a nose like a lumpy potato…Daniel Todd and his friends.

"Oh no," breathed Rose, clutching at the Doctor's hand, sounding extremely uneasy. "Not again. Let's just leave it yeah? Don't say anything," she said desperately, under her breath. She felt sick with trepidation. One encounter in one day had been more than enough. What if they recognised her from the shop? They were children; horrible children, yes, but that didn't mean Rose felt any more comfortable facing them now than she had been when she was ten. There was nowhere for either the gang of boys or the Doctor and Rose to go; they'd have to cross each other's paths. No…

Ashen-faced and shaking, the cuff of her sleeve balled into a fist in her free hand, chewing on her lip nervously, Rose looked from the clump of boys to the Doctor, quite plainly uncomfortable; her eyes darting backwards and forwards.

The Doctor opened his mouth to argue; as to tell her in no uncertain terms why it would be categorically absurd for the most talkative man in the universe to stay quiet when faced with the four hard-faced louts who had so severely hurt his best friend, to the extent that she was still afraid of them, even as an adult, but he soon closed it again.

The boys were staring at the Doctor, their mouths hanging open in silent horror. All four of them looked paler than they had done in the park; every single sneer and shred of cockiness and spite had gone. They looked scared. Of the Doctor. They were staring at him as if they were looking at a ghost, in stupefied recognition and utter disbelief. As one, they looked over their shoulders back in the direction they had come, back at the wall and then at the Doctor again, as if double-checking.

"C'mon," muttered Daniel gruffly to his friends, never taking his eyes off the Doctor in a look of the utmost dislike, mistrust and reluctant awe.

The Doctor glared at them, his face severe, like a stone statue of an angry, scorned god. Rose, on the other hand, breathed in as they brushed past her, hardly daring to make eye-contact with them, and did not let out a long, shaky breath until they'd all gone. It was as is she was fruitlessly trying to blend in with the scrubby brickwork behind her.

She looked around at the boys, who were scarpering away, almost tripping over their feet in their haste, and at the Doctor, completely perplexed.

"What did…?"

But her words were cut off by a loud pop, like a cork being released by a champagne bottle, followed by four strangled cries and shouts of four-letter expletives.

Rose whirled around to see Daniel and his three troll-like mates lying winded on the ground, groaning and swearing as they attempted to stagger back to their feet. All were completely covered in a white, chalky powder.

It clung like plaster dust to their hair and caked their coats; it was all over their hands and wrists and the ground around them; smeared across their faces. Everywhere except their eyes; their faces were stark white, like painted clowns, except for a clear strip across their eyes, which made them look devilish and inhuman.

In spite of herself, Rose let go of the Doctor's hand and strode forwards, towards the nearest boy, who was crouching, panting, as if he'd been kicked in the ribs.

She stared down at him indifferently for a moment, taking in the white clumps that were scattered across his pudding-bowl haircut and all down his unkind face, and the glimpse of orange and red paper peeking out of his hood, before sighing and crouching beside him.

"You going to shout for your mummy?" she said flatly, repeating what he had said to her so many years before. Except she did not sound taunting and cruel like he had; she sounded quite toneless; tired and disappointed, but there was a coldness to her voice, which even she didn't expect to hear.

Daniel's muddy brown eyes stared sullenly back at her, showing no sign of recognition until she raised her eyebrows at him disdainfully, and they widened like saucers.

"Tyler?" he gasped, matching the brown eyes of the unflinching, beautiful woman crouching in front of him, with the scared, fearful eyes of the ten year old he'd been taunting mere hours before. He stared at her, as if he'd just been hit over the head with a hammer.

"Yeah," she said shortly, before reaching into his hood and drawing out an empty Sherbet Fountain packet; all crinkled and caved-in on itself. She paid it no more than a disinterested glance before tossing it away to the side and, quite forcefully, grabbing Daniel by the shoulders and wrenching him to his feet. "I'm sorry," she said dryly, her eyes sarcastic as she kept a hold of him for a second, to prevent him from losing his balance. "I've ran out of tissues," she told him, gesturing at his ruined, white-stained coat.

Calmly, with one last piercing look at Daniel she turned on her heel, her trainers scuffing the ground and marched back over to the Doctor, who had not moved, watching the scene in front of him with a sort of surprised resignation.

He looked closely at Rose's face as she re-joined him, gauging to see if she seemed angry or upset. She at first glance, seemed unmoved, yet there was a slight shine to her eyes that suggested that she felt oddly triumphant.

"That was…unfortunate," said the Doctor mildly, looking back over his shoulder as he said this. All four of the boys had got to their feet and were staggering, drunkenly round the corner of the back alley.

"Very unfortunate," agreed Rose, looking not at the boys but at the Doctor, with an unreadable expression on her face. A cloying, awkward silence, not unlike the ones that usually followed when they discussed the Doctor's past companions, or Mickey or Rose's mortality, fell between them.

They ventured further down the back alley, grimacing at the litter and broken glass and musty, rotten scent of congealing food that seemed to cling to their nostrils, before they caught sight of a very familiar and welcoming wooden blue box, standing proudly on the street corner, beside a newly-painted lamppost.

"So," said Rose in a rather forced voice, as if she was talking purely for the want of something to fill the silence with. "How did you do it?"

The Doctor, who had taken hold of the sleeve of Rose's jacket as they crossed the road, looked at her quizzically and pulled on his ear.

"Do what?" he asked, drawing the key to the TARDIS from his coat pocket as they reached the police box. However, he did not use it; he merely twirled it round and round on his finger before crossing his arms and leaning back against the TARDIS, surveying Rose quite neutrally.

Rose raised her eyebrows at him in an "Ok-you-can-stop-pretending-now' sort of way and stood in front of him, shifting her hips so that her weight rested on just one leg.

"That thing with the Sherbet Fountains. They had sherbet all over them," she said suspiciously, her eyes narrowed, but she didn't sound accusing; just curious, as if she genuinely did want to know how he'd done it. Because he must have done. They'd had Sherbet Fountains nestled in their hoods, and the Doctor had bought four of them, and somehow he'd created some sort of…sherbet explosion. Somehow…she'd bet her mum's flat on it.

The Doctor laughed, his eyes glimmering. He held up his hands, his mouth curving into a smile. "Honestly," he said, waggling his eyebrows to punctuate his point. "I didn't do anything."

Rose looked at him skeptically and the Doctor's grin widened at her expression. "How could I have, when I've been standing right next to you?" he said lowly, taking a step towards her so she could hear him properly. He held her by her elbows, gently, his dark brown eyes intense and full of humour and contained laughter as he returned her challenging gaze.

"Did I ever leave you, Rose?" he continued, just as quietly, the gleeful merriment in his eyes and his close proximity to her causing heat to rise in her cheeks.

"N-no," she stammered unsurely, searching his face for the source of whatever it was that he evidently found so funny. "But…"

"No," the Doctor finished for her with a wink, still smiling. He plunged his hand into one of his coat pockets and pulled out the pink and white striped plastic bag from the newsagents.

Out of it, he plucked out four heavy Sherbet Fountains; their outsides covered in a slight dusting of sherbet, but their twisted tops with the sticks of liquorice poking out, still very much in tact, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, expecting applause. He handed them to Rose, still with a maddening smile on his face, who took them with limp fingers, handling them gingerly as if they were made out of porcelain.

She gazed down at them mistrustfully, her teeth tugging at her bottom lip, her eyes preoccupied. The Doctor could almost hear the delicate whirring of her mind as she attempted to piece together her broken thoughts and half-wild assumptions.

He sniggered and turned around, fiddling with the TARDIS' lock and holding the door open for her, ever the gentleman.

Rose walked into the console room dazedly, frowning down at the Sherbet Fountains in her hands, and, seeming not to notice where she was going, stopped in the middle of the grated ramp, staring round at the Doctor in confusion

"But you," said the Doctor winningly, shrugging off his coat and laying it over the railing before running a hand through his hair, scrunching it up in a manic sort of fashion. "Have given me a rather brilliant idea," he announced happily, hands at her waist as he gently pushed her towards the centre column, and then gave her a quick hug from behind.

His gestures wild an over-the-top, he hammered down a load of buttons and pranced around the central column like a proud, excitable schoolboy in his absolute element. He grinned over at her from the other side of the time rotor as he pulled down an aerial and flicked at what appeared to be a doorbell.

Rose, still holding the Sherbet Fountains as if they were hot-wired, put them down carefully on the Captain's chair and smiled uncertainly back. Her eyes crinkled up and she let out a raucous laugh, her grin becoming genuine as the Doctor began whistling something that sounded suspiciously like 'Wannabe.'

The Doctor stopped suddenly, realising what he had been whistling and wrinkled his nose as if there were something particularly smelly underneath it. His expression was comical; he looked absolutely disgusted with himself, as if he'd just inadvertently criticized the banana. He looked up at Rose in mock-horror, pointing an accusatory finger at her, a roguish glint in his eye as his hand hovered teasingly over the 'Airlock' button.

The Doctor's self -berations and Rose's shrieks and squeals of laughter as he childishly chased her around the middle column, rang out through the console room, bouncing off the golden-hued, humming walls as the TARDIS was propelled into the Time Vortex.

* * *

To be continued, of course...!

I want to get one of my stories finished quite soon, (hopefully, two by Christmas) and, if it suits everyone, I'd like to finish _Sherbet Fountian_ first, then _Call him Johnny_, because they're shorter than _Miss Cooper_ and a bit less complicated! Is this ok? If you have any preferences, please do let me know!


	7. Chapter 7

Sherbet Fountain:

Living with an absent daughter

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**Disclaimer:** Nah. Nothing's mine.

**Author's Note:** Dr. Who tomorrow! Woo! Presents are wrapped, _Gavin and Stacey_ is finished...nothing else to do now but upload a new chapter! I vaguely recall saying I'd have this story finished by Christmas. Oops! I hope you enjoy this; please review and let me know, either way! How's my Jackie? And the Doctor and Rose? Ok? I think some of you may have worked out what the Doctor's next move may be...he's a very clever man! Hope everybody has a good Christmas holiday ;) For those who have January exams...don't work too hard! Thanks for reading.

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From the radio, through in the kitchen, where it was stood on the bench beside the biscuit tin, an old Bryan Adams song came drifting through into the living room, causing Jackie to give an audible groan.

"Thought we'd seen the back of this song," she tutted, squinting at a section of hair she held between her fingers before chopping off the dry, split-ends with her scissors.

"It was around for ages, wasn't it?" replied Heather, trying to keep her head still as she talked. "Number one when my niece was born and ooh, she's fifteen now. What film was it from, again? _Braveheart_?"

Jackie closed the blades of her scissors and shifted all of her weight onto her left leg, one hand on her hip as she thought. "Err. No, no; I know the one you mean, though. It had that bloke in it. Kevin Costner."

She frowned down at the carpet, as if it could tell her the answer, chewing her lip.

_Men._ Longhaired men with trees and bows and drunken monks…

"_Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves_," she said quickly, the title coming to her in a rare flash of movie-trivia brilliance. She clicked her scissors together for emphasis and smiled broadly, giving herself a mental pat-on-the-back.

"That's it, yeah!" said Heather happily, in a 'Argh-I-really-should-have-known-that' sort of voice, nearly shaking her head, but remembering just in time, that it would _not_ be a good idea; not unless she wanted wonky layers.

She wasn't actually one of Jackie's regulars; she came to her every seven months or so to get her hair cut and re-styled, yet she was going to some sort of posh work 'do tonight and so had arranged an appointment in her lunch-hour for a quick trim and tidy-up.

An assistant manager for a company that made batteries, Heather was in her late thirties; tall and brown-haired, carrying slightly too much weight around her tummy and hips, (though she disguised it well) and periwinkle blue eyes. Both her smile and loud laugh were highly contagious and she could jabber on about the TV, celebrities, sales, men and her nieces and nephews with the best of them.

Needless to say, she and Jackie got on like a house on fire, cackling away as Jackie worked her magic with a pair of scissors and foil wrappers. Jackie always felt a bit deflated after Heather left, dashing off to a conference or training course, leaving Jackie on her own in the empty flat as she vacuum cleaned up bits of fallen hair and rinsed out used mugs.

Underneath her ready smile and bubbly manner, Jackie felt…slightly lonely, without Rose. She missed her. It was just the little things, like Rose telling her off for not re-stocking the biscuit tin, or bringing her a cup of tea in the morning, or sitting on the end of her bed for a girly chat. It made her feel like a little bit of her was missing; Rose's possessions and photographs were still strewn all over the flat, and yet she wasn't _there_.

She knew it was perfectly normal to feel so forlorn; the thing about having children was that they were always going to grow up eventually. Sons and daughters left home all the time; off to university, to new jobs, to get married, to start families of their own…yet with Rose it was different.

If she was honest, yes, she knew Rose wouldn't be living with her forever; she knew she'd move out at one point, but Jackie always thought that it'd be with Mickey.

The pair of them, getting married and getting off the estate, finding _good_ jobs…Not anything too fancy, though. Mickey was good with computers and could find a job in IT and Rose, well, she had her GCSE's, hadn't she?

She could start her own business, or work in an office; be a receptionist or something. Scrape and save to buy a proper house in a nicer area, but not _too_ far from the Powell Estate, so that they could still come round for dinner every Thursday and Sunday, and drop in for cups of tea after work. She could help look after their children; Rose would make _such_ a good mum…

But then, things hadn't quite gone exactly as Jackie had imagined them to. Rose wasn't Mickey's girlfriend anymore. She wasn't with him, tucking into beans on toast in front of _Big Brother_.

She was living in a blue box, racketing around space with a nine hundred and whatever year old alien. No matter how much she missed her, Jackie had sworn to herself that she'd never tell her; never make her feel guilty or shame her into making her stay, because whenever Rose _did_ come home, a slightly awkward-looking Doctor just behind her, she was full of beans; eyes dancing, smile wide, looking beautiful, confident and achingly happy.

A motherly instinct kicked in, making her realise exactly _why_ Rose was so happy, even if she, herself hadn't quite worked it out yet.

Giving a small sigh, Jackie combed through Heather's hair with her fingers, checking to see that her layers were even and that there were no straggly bits. " So, have you got a new dress for tonight then?" she asked brightly, filling the small silence that had lapsed between them.

"Yeah, I popped into _Monsoon_ the other day," she replied, smiling. "I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it'll fit!"

"Ooh, very posh!" remarked Jackie, moving round so she could cut the sides of Heather's hair. "They've got some lovely stuff in there."

"Well, _Henriks_ used to be my usual haunt," confided Heather. "Whenever I was going out and needed a last minute fix, but after it closed down…"

"Mmmh," retorted Jackie darkly, keeping her eyes fixed on angling her scissors. _That_ had been the Doctor's fault, too…

"Actually, speaking of _Henriks_; that reminds me," said Heather, glancing at a framed photo of Rose on top of the TV. "How's Rose these days? She enjoying herself?"

"Haven't spoken to her in a while," admitted Jackie, hesitantly, looking at the photo, too. "Last time she rang she was in Rome."

Jackie obviously didn't elaborate and explain that she had in fact been in _ancient_ Rome, taking a statue of herself that would one day end up in the British Museum, to some rich man's villa.

She always told her friends and neighbours, and anyone else who asked, really, that Rose was off traveling with her friends.

She didn't bother telling the whole truth because she didn't fancy being forced to see a psychiatrist, thank you very much. Of course, a few years ago, if someone had told her that their daughter was out saving the world with an alien who liked tea and bananas, well _she_ would have laughed and scorned, too. Not now, though.

"Ahhh _lovely_," gushed Heather wistfully. "I'd _love_ to go there, ooh, lucky her. All those yummy Italian men! Get her to bring one home!"

"Pfft-I'd prefer it if she brought two!"

The pair of them burst into gales of high laugher, tickled at Jackie's mischievousness.

"Ah well, you're only young once," reasoned Heather, giving a little titter.

Jackie murmured in agreement and walked round so that she was in front of Heather, bending slightly and smoothing down the hair hanging down both sides of her face, checking to see if it was even, a look of utmost concentration in her eyes.

Her eagle eyes picked out a long bit in her fringe, which she got rid of and stepped back to look at her handiwork. She reached for a purple plastic bottle amongst all of her serums, shampoos, scissors and straighteners on her trolley beside her and sprayed a vanilla-scented mist over Heather's head, after instructing her to close her eyes.

"That's you done, love," she said cheerfully, putting the bottle down and beaming proudly, as Heather stood and checked her appearance in the mirror above the fireplace, dusting the hair off her sharply-creased work trousers.

"It's _fabulous_, thank you," said Heather admiringly, running both hands through her newly-chopped hair like a preening little girl. She stood still, letting Jackie remove a thin, grey cape from around her shoulders and then bent down to retrieve her handbag.

"Well, you look gorgeous," complimented Jackie, giving the cape a quick shake to get rid of the excess hair before folding it and laying it carefully over her trolley. "The men from payroll will be falling over themselves tonight!" she teased, smiling knowingly.

Heather snorted. "Oh, I wish! Most of them are married, or divorced and going bald with a beer gut! Or spotty, skinny things just out of university!"

"A nice toy boy, then?" suggested Jackie innocently, but with a wicked twinkle in her eye.

"Don't!" protested Heather with a laugh, going red. "The poor boy who's been sniffing round me hasn't even reached puberty yet, by the looks of him. Makes me feel old! I could be his mum!"

She fumbled in her handbag for a thick leather purse, rifling through it to extract a handful of notes. "How much do I owe you?" she said, still laughing gleefully and shaking her head.

Jackie pulled her top down over the waistband of her jeans awkwardly, because dealing with the money side, was an uncomfortable reminder that she was working; doing a job, doing business, rather than just having a chat with a friend.

The wall of politeness and professionalism was back between them; a stark reminder that Heather was a client and Jackie was merely her hairdresser.

"Three fifty," said Jackie, trying not to sound embarrassed. For some reason, asking for money always made her feel self-conscious and she nearly always fluffed her way through it.

Heather raised a heavily plucked, crayoned eyebrow at her, skeptically. "It's more than that, Jackie; don't be soft!"

"I only gave you a dry trim!" insisted Jackie, waving away Heather's proffered five-pound note like a particularly indignant mother hen.

"I know, and that's fine!" said Heather sincerely. "So take this and keep the rest as a tip, yeah?" she held the five-pound note out to Jackie, stubbornly. "And if you don't take it, I'll go somewhere else!" she promised her, only half-serious.

Jackie had enough common sense to know when to give in gracefully and so she sighed, though good-naturedly and took the note from her, looking only mildly disapproving.

"If you're sure," she said doubtfully. "Thanks."

Heather nodded; looking satisfied that Jackie seemed to be behaving herself and slung her handbag over her shoulder in a business-like manner. Slowly, she made her way over to the front door, Jackie following politely to see her out.

"You have a good time tonight, yeah?" Jackie told her, wedging the door open with one hip and watching as Heather made her way down through the concrete walkway

Heather called back her thanks, waving cheerily and Jackie closed the door, sliding the chain into place.

Alone.

Sighing, and trying to force herself into a better mood, Jackie shuffled back into the living room and picked up the large, bleach-stained pink towel that was laid on the floor around the hard-backed chair that Heather had been sitting in.

It was littered with tufts of dark hair, like fallen leaves. Balling it up and tucking it under her arm, she carried it into the kitchen; empty tea mugs in her other hand, and shook the excess hair off into the bin before stuffing the towel into the washing machine.

She actually really liked tidying up; swiveling tins round so that the lables were the right way, never leaving empty bottles in the shower…it was just as well, really, as Pete had been messy and Rose. Well, Rose had definitely inherited Pete's untidiness gene.

Back in the living room, she put away her scissors in their leather pouch and wheeled her hairdressing trolley into the walk-in cupboard, out of sight, humming along to an incredibly old _Take That_ song now being played on the radio. The station must be doing a 90's thing…

She was wiping down the coffee table, when the letterbox went; there was a loud band of the metal flap shutting against the door as a rolled-up newspaper was shoved through. Abandoning her damp cloth, she crossed to the hallway and stooped to pick it up. It was the local community newspaper; not that big on major news, really but the adverts in it were good.

One of her mates had bought a kitchen table after seeing the advert in the local paper. There was a lot of rubbish advertised too, of course. Old videos and cassettes. Really, who had a video player these days? Jackie had the sneaking suspicion that she'd probably forgotten how to use one.

It had been the same when CD's were brought out; people were adamant that they'd stick to their record players and walkmans, but they hadn't. Even now, CD's were on their way out. Everyone had i-pods, didn't they?

She unfurled the paper in the hallway and leant against the wall as she flicked through it; dismissing article after article on the environment and finances and cake stalls, until a half-page piece caught her eye.

There was a picture of the Manager of _Blockbusters;_ the DVD rentals shop around the corner, grinning up at her.

He was a small, stocky man with a dry sense of humour in his late fifties. Not that she went very often, but whenever she _did _pop into _Blockbusters _he was always very friendly; didn't stand for any nonsense. A few weeks ago, though, there'd been an armed robbery at the shop. Three men had stormed in balaclavas with kitchen knives and handguns. Scarpered off with the entire contents of the till and gave the poor Manager concussion.

The police hadn't found anyone, either; that had been the really worrying thing. Shopkeepers were being extra cautious. More cautious than usual, and that was certainly saying something, as Jackie didn't exactly live in a lovely area.

Now though, the newspaper was sating that three men had been arrested and sentenced on fresh, unshakable evidence…

"Serve 'em right," remarked Jackie, approvingly.

But as she continued reading, her stomach gave a squeeze of recognition and her breath hitched. The men had been named; Daniel Todd, Kevin Robinson and Niall Shelding.

Slowly, Jackie closed the paper, swallowing and dropped it on the hall table, walking into the kitchen in a bit of a daze. Those names…

The names 'Kevin Robinson' and 'Niall Shelding' hadn't had much of an effect on her until she'd read the name 'Daniel Todd.'

She rummaged for a biscuit in the biscuit tin and sat down at the table, chin resting on her hand. She felt…angry, yet strangely triumphant at the same time. Happy that the three men had been caught for robbing _Blockbusters_; that they'd finally been caught out. For once, they hadn't been able to get away with it.

But that was just one crime, though, wasn't it? How many pensioners had they mugged in the Post Office? How many people had they threatened and beaten up?

They'd been menacing people since they were children, and their crimes had increased in seriousness, as they'd grown older. Gone from bullying to dealing; to setting fire to cars and stealing TV's. They were the boys who had picked on Rose when she had been younger.

Reading their names had acted as a sort of mental trigger, and Jackie could remember Rose coming home from school in a right state, crying at being called names and being pushed over in the corridor. The shock of sympathy, heartbreak and anger that had coursed through her as she'd sat Rose on her knee and cuddled her in close, attempting to comfort her; stroking her hair and pressing kisses to her cheek, promising that she'd sort it out…

Except she hadn't been able to, had she? She'd spoken to the Head teacher, but she'd been absolutely useless.

She'd told the boys off, but it hadn't stopped them. If anything, it had made things a million times worse because they'd started on Rose for being a 'snitch' and telling on them.

She could remember sitting in the dim living room late at night, in this freezing cold flat, having put Rose to bed, crying quietly as she finished her last cup of tea. She'd had to pull her sleeves over her mouth to stop Rose from hearing her as she sniffled, feeling helpless and furious with herself. Furious with the boys, too, for making her Rose so scared and upset that she didn't want to go to school anymore, but annoyed at herself because Rose was her little girl, and she couldn't stop her from being bullied, and so…what sort of mum did that make her?

Jackie sniffed, realising that her eyes had welled up, even though it had been so long ago; even though her daughter was all grown-up and traveling round saving the universe. There were some things mothers just didn't ever forget and get over…

It had stopped, eventually; the bullying. After the incident with the algae and the Sherbet Fountains, the boys had never ever taunted her again. The day after, Jackie sat on the settee waiting for Rose to get in, fiddling with her nails nervously, ready to jump up and go and slap someone if anything had been said. But Rose had come in more relaxed than she had been in years, if a little nonplussed.

"They didn't say anything to me, mum," Rose had said breathlessly, giving Jackie a tight hug. " They wouldn't even _look_ at me in the line!"

That had been it, oddly enough. Two years of non-stop bullying, then…nothing.

There _had_ been four of them, but if Jackie remembered correctly, the littlest one had walked out on the other three not long after the Sherbet Fountain incident.

Decided his loyalties lay elsewhere; turned over a new leaf. Left school at fourteen but then went to catering college and turned out…not too badly. Last Jackie had heard, he'd had a baby with his girlfriend and was working hard to support them.

Shame the others hadn't followed his example; they were obviously just as awful as they'd always been, but at least now they they'd been caught…it would be a while before any of them shoplifted again. Good!

Lost in thoughts and memories, Jackie sat there at the table for a while, until a small niggling voice at the back of her mind reminded her that there was still washing to sort out and put away.

She got to her feet and tried to put the newspaper article to the back of her mind, because otherwise she'd end up all low and teary. It had made her miss Rose even more than she had before.

She just wanted to give her a hug and make sure that she was still all right; to let her know that, even though Rose didn't need any parental looking after anymore, she was still just as precious to her as she'd always been. But then, getting all weepy and sentimental wouldn't bring Rose home any sooner…

Jackie unloaded the dryer into the cracked plastic washing basket and heaved it through into the living room, where she always sorted out the washing.

Working on autopilot, she made a pile of bed sheets and towels, then clothes that needed ironing, then a pile of things that just needed to be put away into drawers; stuff like socks and pyjamas. There was already a clothes-horse sagging under the weight of freshly ironed jeans, hoodies, tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts that she'd been fussing over before Heather had arrived. She felt like a washerwoman at times.

Jackie took everything down from the clotheshorse and piled it up, pausing only when she recognised a familiar velour pink zip-up top. It wasn't hers.

It was Rose's, and for a second she felt confused, frowning down at the soft garment as if it had no right to be there, Rose hadn't been home in months, so why had her top been in the wash?

_Then _she remembered. Last week, she'd been in town and had got absolutely drenched in the early March rain, and having been unable to find something wardrobe, she'd delved into Rose's, knowing that she wouldn't have minded.

It had still smelt of Rose's perfume; the one she'd bought for her when she was fifteen, that she'd liked so much that she just bought her more of it at Christmas or on her birthday; whenever she ran out. _Burberry_ something.

Of course she used to filch sprays of Jackie's posh _Coco Mademoiselle_ whenever she was going out with Mickey, or out clubbing with the girls, or any other special occasion, really. Since Rose's last visit home though, her _Coco Mademoiselle_ had mysteriously vanished… and Jackie would bet her months wages that it had ended up in Rose's bedroom.

In the TARDIS. Cheeky madam.

Jackie picked up the large pile of washing, tucking it under her chin so she didn't drop it like an old woman, and carried it through into her bedroom, dumping it on the bed with a half-hearted promise that she would put it away later. From the bottom of the pile, she collected Rose's top and took it into Rose's room, remembering with a slight pang how she used to sit on Rose's bed whilst she got ready to go out; giving her opinion on outfits and matching jewelry.

"_Are you saying I look like a tart?" _A memory of an eighteen year old Rose standing with her arms crossed self-consciously across her chest with her blonde hair crimped and hair sprayed to within an inch of its life, wearing metallic glitter blue eye shadow and too much Touche Éclat crawled across her mind's eye as she sat down on Rose's bed, with a creak of bedsprings.

"_No, sweetheart…all I'm saying is that less is sometimes more," _Jackie had soothed her, backpedaling furiously as she waved a hand at what Rose was wearing; dark, boot-cut jeans, silver high-heels and a low-cut, skin-tight halter-neck.

"_Yeah, and what's the difference, then?" _Rose had shot back, sulkily, shaking off Jackie's placatory hand and turning round to glare at the rails of clothes in her wardrobe. She'd wrenched a ribbed blue vest top with sequined straps off its hanger and worn that instead, grumbling. _"Honestly…I'd just rather you just came straight out with it…"_

Jackie gazed around at Rose's room. It felt weird, being in here when she hadn't been in for so long.

It was tidy, for one. Rose always managed to leave her room in a state, even if she'd just come home for a flying visit; though she _tried_, bless her; tried to put things into some sort of order…she was just naturally a bit all over the place.

The Doctor seemed to be the same. His suits were always just a bit rumpled; Converse dirty and hair wild; never standing still for too long. They were like each other in that respect, she supposed.

She looked at the pink walls. They were bare; no posters littered them anymore.

Oh, she could remember when Rose used to sit cross-legged with her tongue sticking out, cutting out posters from _Smash Hits_ and _Girl Talk_, and then stand on her bed with a thick ball of _Blu Tac_, sticking them all up.

There had been pale pink bordered posters of puppies, kittens and dolphins, then posters of _Steps, 5ive, Westlife, Spice Girls, B*Witched_. Rose had loved them all.

She'd grown out of them, though. Before she'd left to travel with the Doctor, her bedside table and chest of draws had been cluttered with framed photos of a sixteen year old Rose and her friends on the last day of school before they sat their GCSE's, writing all over their shirts; half-laughing, half-crying; of Rose and Mickey cuddling each other at someone's twenty-first; of Rose and Jackie at a wedding, with identical bleach-blonde hair and wide smiles.

The same photos still stood in the same places, though they'd been joined by a few new ones. Rose huddled between Jackie, Mickey and the newly regenerated Doctor last Christmas; then one which was obviously her favourite; it was beside the photo of Rose with her mum in a handbag-shaped picture frame on her bedside table; a silver-framed photo of the Doctor and Rose, taken a few months ago when the Doctor had brought Rose home for Jackie's birthday.

She was stood slightly behind the Doctor, leaning over his shoulder to look at him properly, whilst the Doctor had turned his head to laugh at her. Both sets of brown eyes were crinkled; both smiles were wide and happy. Rose's cheeks were slightly pink, as they'd been captured mid-hysteria and neither of them were looking at the camera. Jackie could remember ticking them off, crossly, but what had they been laughing at?

"_Oi! You two! You're not looking!" _Jackie had screeched at them.

"_Where am I supposed to look_?" the Doctor had asked, feigning stupidity and squinting up at the ceiling, wearing an expression that suggested that he was being awkward on purpose.

"_Over here!_"

"_No. I can't. I'm allergic to camera flashes,"_ he'd said solemnly, his face deadpan.

"_Oh my Gaawd, are you?"_ Jackie had panicked, flustering.

"_No, he's not!"_ admonished Rose, giggling.

"_I am! Look! It makes my eyes go all twitchy!"_ the Doctor had insisted, looking to the left with one eye and at the floor with the other, using his 'superior Time Lord physiology', causing both Jackie and Rose to squeal in horror.

"_Stop it,"_ Rose had said, elbowing him in the ribs. _"You're like that woman from…"_

" _The Red Zusak!"_ they'd chimed together, in excitement, pleased that they'd both had the same thought.

"'_I can seeee youu,' she goes,"_ mimicked Rose, laughing and flailing her arms about. _"'I can seee you're there…and then she trips over her chamber pot and falls flat on her face! D'you remember?"_

"_She put a dent in the floorboards!"_ the Doctor had said incredulously. _"Mad old bat!"_

Jackie tore her eyes away from the photo, a smile still on her face.

Maybe that was how they always were. She'd seen them together; fighting against aliens and monsters; despairing over moral decisions; totally in tune with each other, stubborn as anything, fighting tooth and nail…but when they _weren't_ saving solar systems and caught up in serious stuff, they just seemed to laugh all the time.

It was bewildering, but at the same time, quite funny and heart-warming.

On first glance, it may have seemed that the room's occupier wasn't absent at all, but on closer inspection, Jackie could pick up on the tell-tale signs that Rose hadn't been using the room, like pieces of a jigsaw that had been taken away.

Her make-up, perfume and hairbrush had gone from in front of the mirror, and there was an absence of glossy magazines on the floor beside Rose's bed, which she liked to read before she went to sleep, and of course, her wardrobe was a bit more bare.

Not by much, though, because Jackie still bought Rose clothes she thought she might like if she spotted them whilst she was walking through _New Look_ or _Primark_. They hung pristine and unworn, still with their tags on in the wardrobe, in wait of Rose's return, like Jackie herself. Waiting.

Jackie reached for a battered blue teddy bear sitting on Rose's floral pillow; soft, limp and ratty through wear and care.

Mr. Tedopoulos.

It had been Rose's favourite soft toy when she was little. Never went to sleep without it tucked safely under her arm, the tag between her small fingers...

A loud knocking at the door gave her a fright, and she dropped Mr. Tedopoulos as if it had scalded her, feeling as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't.

She replaced the bear so that it was sitting up properly, with its paws crossed and hurried out of Rose's room towards the front door.

Consciously, she tucked her hair behind her ears and adjusted her top, pulling up her jeans, as the knocking grew more insistent. She wasn't expecting anyone.

It was bound to be some interfering woman pushing house ware catalogues or self-help books; stating one hundred reasons why she needed one. Well, Jackie could think of only one reason, and that was to whack the seller over the head with one.

Cautiously, Jackie made sure the chain was in place before opening the door a fraction and peeking out. She caught a glimpse of a tall man in a brown coat and a blonde woman huddled into her denim jacket as if it were a blanket, before she flung open the door and threw her arms around her.

"Rose!"

She squeezed her daughter tightly, like a drowning person clinging onto a life raft, before noticing over her shoulder that the Doctor was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible and sneak in unnoticed.

"Oh no you don't, Mister!" Jackie trilled, throwing an arm around the Doctor and pulling him into a crushing hug, whilst still keeping a hold of Rose, so that she and the Doctor clashed heads. "Come here, both of you!"

She kissed Rose and then the Doctor on the forehead, a smile stretched from ear to ear. She felt deliriously happy and excited and overcome…oh, only five minutes ago she was brooding and sniffling over Rose, now here she was! At home!

The Doctor, taken aback, pulled a face and patted her back awkwardly.

"Hello Jackie," he said dryly, disentangling himself from her and rubbing his head. "Still as shy and reluctant as ever."

He had gone faintly pink, like an uncomfortable schoolboy, though he smiled fondly at the two hugging women.

"I've missed you, madam!" said Jackie, holding Rose at arms length so she could look at her properly, before kissing her again on the cheek.

"You're _freezing_!" she yelped, putting a warm hand to Rose's face, which felt like an ice cube. "Where's your coat?"

Oh goodness, how old was she now? Seven? Nagging her about her coat as soon as she walked through the door? It was a wonder she didn't turn straight back round again. But _honestly_, she was only wearing a little denim jacket; dressed as if it were summer! No common sense, her daughter…

"Yeah well…it was early July where we were before…what month's it now?" Rose asked off-handedly, as if thousands of others suffered the same problem every day, and squeezing past Jackie to warm her hands on the radiator.

"It's March!" said Jackie indignantly; looking mistrustfully at the Doctor as if she didn't believe he really knew what he was doing with a…time machine.

The Doctor held his hands up, and blinked incredulously in a 'What-on-Earth-have-I-done-_now_?' sort of look and traipsed off into the living room with his hands in his pockets.

Jackie turned her attention back to Rose, who was now standing with her bum against the radiator.

She still had an overwhelming urge to hug her tightly for about half an hour and then sit her down with several cups of tea and lots of chocolate biscuits and listen to whatever it was she'd been up to… but something about the way Rose was standing made her pause.

She looked her up and down, carefully; taking in her messy hair, oily complexion, baggy, blotchy eyes and streaked make-up.

It seemed that she was holding on to the radiator not only for warmth, but also to keep herself upright. Her eyes were half-closed with fatigue, and looked suspiciously as if she had been crying and her lips were chapped and bleeding.

She looked absolutely worn out. She hadn't come home looking this bad since they'd left Mickey in a parallel universe. Even then, she'd just been upset, but this was something else entirely; she appeared to have no energy or vitality left whatsoever…

"Rose?" began Jackie concernedly, eyes full of care and worry, in the sort of tone that suggested that she was ooh, about three seconds away from launching into full-blown mother-hen, panic mode.

Rose gave her a look that plainly said. 'Stop-it-stop-it-now-don't-you-dare-make-a-fuss-I-really-can't-be-bothered,' but before Jackie could continue any further, the Doctor stuck his head round the side of the living room door, smiling like a lunatic.

"Jackie!" he cried, as if he'd only just spotted her. "You've got a new carpet!"

His head disappeared around the door again, and Jackie and Rose could hear him marveling at the navy blue swirling pattern.

Rose frowned at Jackie looking nonplussed. "What was wrong with the old carpet?" she asked, going over to peer through the doorway.

Jackie gaped after the Doctor, as if his head had fallen off. "But I _haven't_ got a new carpet!" she insisted, mystified as she followed him into the living room and stared at him.

He was stood in the middle of the room, all tall, gangling six foot whatever of him, making the room appear about three times smaller, grinning down at the carpet as if it were Aladdin's…

"Have you not? I thought you…oh no; that's right. You haven't. Sorry. Just looks a bit…well, actually no, it's not different at all," he gabbled, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Rose too, stared at him. Then at the carpet. Then at her mum.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at her.

Jackie looked between Rose and the Doctor, with a weird sense that she was missing something.

"Oh…_oh_," said Rose, looking slightly flushed, fiddling with the cuff of her denim jacket.

She shot a wordless, grateful glance at the Doctor, which he acknowledged with an amused, understanding tilt of his head, before deciding that it was high time to change the subject, unless they wanted Jackie to start accusing them of inhaling strange moon gases…again.

"Mum!" said Rose quickly. "I could murder a cup of tea!"

Jackie, who looked like she'd been hit over the head with a heavy object and whose mouth was hanging open at the pair of them, seemed to wake up as if from a daze and brightened considerably. Not even the Doctor could affect the normality of tea.

She announced cheerfully that she would go and put the kettle on at the same time as the Doctor blinked at Rose in astonishment and piped up, "What did a cup of tea ever do to you?"

Jackie heard Rose jokingly telling him to shut up as she bustled into the kitchen and set the kettle away, whilst at the same time rootling through the cupboards for biscuits and chocolate mini-rolls.

Rose loved chocolate mini-rolls, and so she made sure she always had a packet tucked away at the back of the cupboard for whenever she came home. She'd had them at tea parties when she was younger; with pink party rings and cocktail hot dogs, and then, when she used to come in from her nights out with the girls at half-past four in the morning with a serious case of the munchies, she'd binge eat half a packet and then be sick on the floor…

The Doctor would eat anything, of course. The last time, he'd nearly cleaned her out of custard creams. It was as if the pair of them forgot to eat whenever they were off saving members of the Beatles from getting eaten by eight-foot tall black plants, or something.

Treated her flat like a tea shop…

Jackie found a packet of squashed mini-rolls underneath a nearly full packet of porridge oats that she'd bought on a whim a couple of months ago, in a bid to eat a bit healthier; skip the buttery toast with sugary tea for breakfast and have fruit and cereal instead…She hadn't managed it.

She tipped the entire packet onto one of her best plates and tried to arrange them into some sort of presentable shape, like a pyramid, but the slippery foil wrappers weren't the easiest to…arrange with.

"The kettle's just boiling," she breezed, carrying the plate carefully into the living room and plonking it on top of her pile of _Glamour_ magazines. "I need to get a new one, really- the spout drips when…"

Jackie trailed off.

The living room was empty.

"Rose?" she called, sounding panicked. "Doctor?"

Her face felt uncomfortably hot and her chest was pounding, like a mother who had lost sight of their toddler in a busy supermarket, (incidentally, Rose had wandered off a couple of times when she was younger. Left her side to go and look at the children's books or the sweets. Good at wandering off, she was), even though she knew it was irrational.

Where were they? Oh no. No more funny stuff in her flat! No more aliens (apart from the Doctor, of course) and dodgy trees. They could take that sort of stuff elsewhere!

"Through here," Rose called quickly, from the _hallway_ for some reason. What was she doing out there? Re-melding the front door with his sonic…whatever? Zapper thing?

Jackie followed her voice and found both Rose and the Doctor hovering beside the front door. The Doctor was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, looking very animated about something, and Rose was standing in front of him with her arms crossed; the picture of disapproval.

"Oi! Get off my wall, you! You'll wreck my wallpaper!" she shrieked indignantly to the Doctor, clicking her fingers and pointing at him.

Rose snorted at his flabbergasted expression and pulled him off the wall by his wrists.

"How long for?" she asked him, looking at him severely, carrying on as if Jackie hadn't interrupted them. She shot Jackie a small smile to say 'Tell-you-in-a-minute.'

The Doctor sighed and pulled on his ear, going back to lean against the wall again before Jackie made an angry noise of warning. Sparing a preoccupied glance at Jackie, the Doctor began delving into his many pockets, talking as he did so.

"Dunno. Long as it takes, really. Look," he brought out a pink and white plastic bag and handed it to Rose. "Give her a _Love Heart_ or something to keep her quiet. The pair of you can do…girly stuff," said the Doctor, pulling a face as he searched for inspiration, as if he could imagine nothing worse than doing something 'girly.'

"Like _plaiting_ hair and talking about me," he cajoled, smirking at Rose, who tutted back and rolled her eyes, smiling.

Jackie, was again, feeling as if she was missing something. It _sounded_ like the Doctor was going somewhere…but that was ridiculous because wherever _he _went, Rose followed and there was no way she was letting the Doctor drag Rose off again. Not after only five minutes. She'd _throttle_ him first…

"Where you _going_?" she demanded of him, giving him her best glare, and bless him, to his credit, he seemed a tad reluctant to meet her gaze. "You're not taking her anywhere! Honestly, you bring her home, looking like a dish rag and then drag her off again without even a cup of tea!"

"Mum," began Rose soothingly, at the same time as the Doctor began to protest his innocence. "The Doctor is leaving me here."

She shot a weighted look at the Doctor, which suggested that this certainly wasn't her idea and she was less than thrilled about it. "Even _though_…"

"Rose," he said warningly.

"But…"

Jackie, recognising at the same time as the Doctor, that Rose was in the sort of mood to argue until the cows came home, decided that it would be far better to step in before she got herself too wound up.

"How long for?" Jackie asked the Doctor, echoing Rose, hardly daring to get her hopes built up too high, but unable to keep the excitement from her voice.

The Doctor looked between Rose and Jackie, lingering on Rose's tired eyes and tatty hair. "Overnight?" he suggested, looking back at Jackie.

Jackie saw Rose swallow, half-torn between crying and hugging him. Jackie knew how she felt. She wanted to do the same…in fact. She was going to.

"What the…?" The Doctor squirmed as Jackie threw her arms around him and wetly kissed him on both cheeks.

"Thankyoooouuu! Oh! Oh! You're lovely! Yes, you are! _Lovely_ man!" she burbled happily to him, hugging him tightly. Nothing on him though…thinnest man she'd ever had her arms around. Like a rake. Oh, she'd have to give him a biscuit or something, else he'd snap in two.

"All right, Mum!" giggled Rose, raising her eyebrows at her mum's unexpected and over-the-top display of affection. "Let him breathe."

Looking as if he had been mauled by a bear, the Doctor grimaced as Jackie let go of him and scrubbed at his cheek, turning to Rose.

"Are you sure?" she asked him, looking relieved, yet pained at the same time. "I don't like…"

"Rose," he said pointedly, cutting her off. "You said yourself that you missed her," he said lowly, as if half reluctant to let Jackie hear, but not wanting to block her out. "And after _everything_ today," he said gently, placing a light hand on her arm. "Rose Tyler needs her mum…whether she's ten or not."

Rose muttered something unintelligible, so quietly that Jackie didn't hear, but whatever it was, the Doctor grinned and gave her a quick hug. Jackie pretended to be studying the wallpaper behind him for scuffmarks.

"No. It's all part of my elaborate plan so I can go and fly kites with Benjamin Franklin," he answered her seriously, snapping her a wink. "Course I'm going to come back."

The Doctor gave a mock salute to Jackie with one finger, as if sloppily addressing a General and grinned at Rose as she opened the door for him and he marched out.

"See you later," she said hesitantly, leaning out after him. She said it in such a way that Jackie could tell that it held more than one meaning.

It was as if she was telling him to be careful, to hurry back and that she would miss him…all at the same time. No standing on ceremony and goodbyes for these two. Perhaps they didn't need them, considered Jackie thoughtfully as she joined Rose at the door.

Turning on his heel to face her, so that he was walking backwards across the concrete walkway, the Doctor waggled his eyebrows at Rose.

"Not if I see you first," he quipped back, with a full-watt beam that could shatter a lightbulb.

In the kitchen, the kettle clicked to signal that it had boiled, and the Doctor disappeared down the stone steps with the rusty railing, his long brown coat flapping behind him.

Jackie looked sideways at Rose, expecting to see her look like an abandoned puppy, but to her surprise, she saw that she seemed remarkably calm. More resigned than anything else.

Sighing softly, Rose closed the door. There was a small silence.

"Where's he off to, then?" Jackie couldn't help but ask, her natural curiosity getting the better of her.

Rose ran a hand through her hair and shrugged. " I dunno, really!" she admitted with a laugh. "I've got a _vague_ idea but…" she waved a hand dismissively and didn't finish, blowing out air through her cheeks to that she ruffled her hair. "Anyway, what about that tea, then?" she said, sharply changing the subject. "And to go with it…"

She shook the pink and white plastic bag that the Doctor had given her at Jackie. "Guess what I've got?" she said in a singsong voice, as if she were teasing a small child.

Jackie furrowed her brow and looked at the bag uneasily. "With you two…could be anything," she said, wrinkling her nose, as if the bag contained a _head_ or something.

"No, mum! A _Wispa!_ Look!" enthused Rose impatiently, bringing out one of the thick, blue-wrapped chocolate bars and holding it under Jackie's nose.

Jackie blinked down at it as if she'd been offered a winning lottery ticket.

"Oooooh a _Wispa!_" she squealed, sounding like a giddy teenager. She took it from Rose and held it up, examining it closely as if checking for a watermark. "I thought they'd stopped doing them!! Oh it's been aaaages since I've had a _Wispa!_"

Jackie looked at Rose, who was smiling proudly, as if she'd just presented Jackie with a particularly good school report, looking extremely pleased with herself.

"Where d'you get it?" she asked, skeptically, looking a mite anxious. "It _is _edible, isn't it?" She tore the wrapper off and gave it a cautious sniff. Smelt like chocolate. Mmh.

"Nah, it's poisonous," joked Rose, laughing at her. "Really. It's fine," she assured her, linking her arm through Jackie's and leading the way into the kitchen.

"I dunno, Mum," said Rose, mock-despairingly, as she got down two mugs from the shelf, and Jackie reached for the tea bags. "Everything I've brought back for you…_moon_ rock, Marilyn Monroe's _lipstick_, that thing that makes your washing smell like grass…and you start wetting yourself over a _Wispa_."

"I love _Wispa's_, me. Lovely with a cup of tea. Goes all melty. D'you remember doing that, love? With chocolate biscuits?" said Jackie wistfully, an image of Rose sitting cross-legged in front of a video with chocolate all over her face, dunking her biscuits into her tea, popping up in her mind's eye.

Jackie remembered that she used to fuss and moan about getting crumbs at the bottom of the cup and leaving a sheen of oil and grease on the top, but she hadn't really minded. It had been one of their little mother-daughter quirks, like Rose sitting on the toilet with the lid down, reading _Girl Talk _whilst Jackie was in the bath, or Rose creeping into Jackie's bed after she'd had a bad dream.

Rose, who had been pouring hot water into both cups, put the kettle down with a soft, dream-like smile on her face, her eyes sparkling with fondness and longing, as if she wanted to be little and child-like again.

Jackie opened her mouth to speak; to idly chatter about the state of the cups, or the tidiness of the kitchen, or her journey, but stopped, startled when Rose silently came and wrapped her arms around Jackie's waist and pressed her face against her shoulder.

So she _did_ remember, then.

Making a soft, 'aah' noise, Jackie held Rose tightly and rubbed her back in small circles.

It was how Rose had hugged her when she had been younger; when she'd been too small to clasp her arms around her mum's neck and so had hugged her round the middle instead. If was as if Rose was six or seven again. She was taller now, obviously…but it didn't _feel_ any different.

Jackie rested her chin on top of Rose's head, smelling perfume; _her_ perfume, actually; fresh air, the smell of the city and something else too, that was uniquely Rose. A scent that made fresh tears of love well up in her eyes and a dull ache in her chest.

Her Rose. She was home.

She was exhausted, and she had something on her mind; you could tell that just by looking at her. It was there, behind her eyes and in the set of her mouth.

She needed a good night's sleep in her own bed. She needed a good cry and comfort food, and a hot bath, and a hug on the settee and…_oh._

The Doctor. He'd seen that, hadn't he? That was _why_ he'd wanted her to stay behind, thought Jackie, realisation slowly dawning as she continued to hug Rose.

Rose had been oblivious, but the _Doctor_ hadn't. Oh, he was talkative, charming, flirtatious, rude, funny, intelligent; arrogant…he strode around saving the universe; nine hundred and seventy or however old he was, but there was one thing that the Doctor could never be. He could never be Jackie.

Jackie smirked to herself and made an approving noise before muttering, "Good on 'im for cottoning on."


	8. Chapter 8

Sherbet Fountain:

No Pink and Yellow Human

**Disclaimer:**Nothing's mine. Not even my mind.

* * *

He'd left her on her own before. Left her to do a bit of snooping and crafty detective work; whether it was asking around and finding out where everyone had got their TV's from in the 1950's for the Queen's coronation, or tailing a suspicious-looking rebel with a weird necklace and a glass jaw from 24th century Florence.

She was quick thinking, confident and endlessly determined. She was also slightly _reckless_; something she appeared to have picked up from him. He tried not to feel too proud about that. What else? Well, her smile was useful, too; wide and friendly. It seemed to attract trust like a beacon. One of her encouraging smiles and well-placed compliments, (even a touch of flirting, where appropriate) paired with his charm and riveting manner, and the Doctor and Rose really _could_ coax anything out of anyone or bluff themselves _into_ anywhere.

This was different, though. Too different. He'd never consciously, _intentionally_ left her behind and dematerialised in the TARDIS without her. True, he'd left her with her mum; something both her and Jackie had seemed pleased about, but the empty space beside him, now made him feel…detached. There was no banter and teasing-no blonde chatting away in his ear. Around him, the TARDIS hummed forlornly, particles of floating dust glowing gold in the light that bounced off the walls. He watched the time rotor as it wheezed up and down, grinning at the familiarity. Oddly reassuring.

He was out of practice; that was all. It had been quite a while since he'd traveled on his own. He just wasn't used to not having her beside him; she'd barely left him since they'd met, and that had been a long time ago-longer even than Rose possibly realised. Hmm. He hated how defensive he sounded, even to himself; as if he had to justify his feelings of…well, _loss._

Again, a shiver crept up his spine as he thought about this. Just for the smallest of nano-seconds. The same unnerving feeling that had hit him before, when Rose had been out of his reach as he'd carried her younger self home. The aching sensation that he'd lost her. But this time, it seemed feebler. As it didn't have enough momentum to torture him; more watered-down, less brutal but no less disconcerting.

The Doctor scowled, trying to shake off his feeling of unease, to put the feeling out of his head. A small, sly voice in a secluded layer of his mind; one that most frequently empathised with his more human-like qualities, asked him _why_ he found the idea of losing Rose so upsetting, and suggested that the reason behind his finding it strange to dematerialise on his own was because he didn't want to ever have to get used to what it would be like without her.

The Doctor sighed and leant back against the console; buttons and levers pressing into his back uncomfortably, hands shoved into his pockets.

That train of thought, in that quiet layer of his mind was straying dangerously close to emotions he was too stubborn to acknowledge. Quickly, he closed it down and set the layer the mental task of translating _1984_ into Ancient Greek, and tucked it away.

Much better.

He knew where to start, of course he did. His fingers brushed over cool, smooth leather and he pulled out his Psychic Paper, and looked at it thoughtfully. Because he hadn't bought four Sherbet Fountains on a mere whim…

* * *

**That Morning**

"…dodgy hair and a crick in my neck," came Rose's voice as she emerged from her bedroom, smoothing down the hem of her t-shirt as she pulled it down over the waistband of her jeans.

"Mmh," replied the Doctor vaguely, as he read the symbols scrolling across the scanner at an unnaturally fast speed. He looked up as she reached his side with a light bounce, and flashed her a grin. Her hair _did_ look a bit wild and untamable, but oh, that was fine; he wasn't bothered. And he recognised that t-shirt. Cyndi Lauper had given her that t-shirt…

"Yes, well. If you'd gone to bed like a normal person, rather than sleeping on a chair, muttering in your sleep about…"

"I was _not_ talking in my sleep!"

"You wouldn't have a sore neck and be moaning like a grumpy-guts," finished the Doctor, sounding smug, as if he had not been interrupted. He sidestepped her retaliatory smack on the arm, and ignored her, pulling out his Psychic Paper in surprise. There had been a small, warm tug at the back of his mind, which he supposed, had been the Psychic Paper's way of telling him that there was a new message on it. The same thing had happened all those months ago when the Face of Boe had summoned them to the hospital. It was the mental equivalent of being elbowed in the ribs.

He watched as a message in familiar, scrawling handwriting appeared black and bold on the paper, like an instant photo swimming into focus.

_Buy four Sherbet Fountains_.

He recognised it as _his_ handwriting. His thoughts were panic-tinged, and immediately jumped to paradoxes and the dangers of reverse-logic. His future-self communicating with him? Risky. Very tricky, slippy ground, here. He must have a concrete-good reason, or the future-him wouldn't have bothered…

_Exactly. Don't tell her._

He could guess that the 'her' meant Rose, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She was watching him, curiously, trying to peek, subtly at the fresh message.

He dropped his eyes back to the Psychic Paper almost immediately. Four Sherbet Fountains. That was why they were waltzing off to 1997, anyway; to buy a Sherbet Fountain and the first edition of _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_. Ingenious designs; Sherbet Fountains-hard stick of tasteless liquorice; chalky, zesty sherbet and colourful paper. Brilliant. But _four_? Why in the name of Professor Quirell's turban would they need to buy four? To use as chandeliers, perhaps?

_Yes_ flashed back the Psychic Paper. _That would be marvelously decorative_.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at his own eccentrically sarcastic humour and snapped the wallet shut, gaining a disappointed look from Rose, who was still trying to see what it said.

"What is it?" asked Rose, nodding at the Psychic Paper, which he'd tried to sneak back into his pocket, furtively.

"What? This?" asked the Doctor, innocently, pulling the wallet out again. "Shopping list. Old one. Must have been jammed in there since…oh…the 1920's? We went to the British Empire Exhibition, remember? Had a run-in with the Painted Lady?"

He let her look at it, extremely grateful that the future-him had written in Gallifreyan. Rose squinted at it, nevertheless and gave him a pointed look and a rather disgruntled 'Yeah' at the mention of the Painted Lady.

"Silly woman," sniffed the Doctor, as Rose gave him back the Psychic Paper and he put it back in his pocket, brow furrowed as he thought about one of their early adventures back into 1924, in his previous leather jacket-clad body; clockwork cats and dispossessed rulers. "She nicked my jacket off me!" he reminded her, indignantly, his voice going up a notch.

"She fancied you," Rose informed him with a teasing grin, though her voice betrayed a hint of displeasure at this as the Doctor tapped at a meter on one segment of the console and moved round to the next one, gently shifting Rose out of the way.

" Gloomy Mr. Big-Ears?" asked the Doctor in surprise, momentarily thrown by this new information, gesturing at his own, much-smaller ears. "Really?"

"Yeah," said Rose with a smirk. "But those masks of hers covered her eyes so…" she tipped her head on the side and smiled at him, widely, tongue peeking through her teeth.

He grabbed hold of her arm to steady her as the TARDIS shuddered and landed awkwardly, sending the Doctor veering into the metal railings and knocking Rose to the grated floor.

He re-gained his balance almost immediately and shrugged on his long coat, which he'd draped over the console and chucked Rose's denim jacket in her direction as she picked herself up. That, too, had been left lying on the console, and the TARDIS hummed something sulky about being used as a clotheshorse.

He spared her a guilty pat and almost ran to the door, pausing only to wait for Rose, eager to get out there into a new, unexplored time. It never stopped being exhilarating and exciting, no matter how many times they did it. He ventured out first and held the door open for Rose, so that she had to duck under his arm.

She walked out, slowly and gaped round, a beam almost splitting her face into two, tucking her arm through the Doctor's proffered elbow.

"Wednesday the second of July, 1997," he announced proudly…

* * *

It took him all of two seconds to write three sentences on his Psychic Paper, and to make sure that they would appear to his past self at exactly the right time. To anyone other than a Time Lord, this would appear to defy logic. The tiniest of tiny paradoxes. He knew what to write, knew that it would work…well, because he'd already read it, hadn't he? Not that difficult, really. That was _that_ sorted out; now for the next bit…the brilliant idea that Rose had given him, which _would_ work because he'd seen it happen. Maybe he'd made it happen? Possibly. Quite probably.

He closed his eyes, lightly and opened his mind, let his consciousness drift and wander. He was the last Time Lord; he could _feel_ and _see_ everything; every tiny, minute detail of existence. Every second that had ever passed; every second that would ever pass. Everything that ever could be; everything that _should_ be, but would never happen, everything that _might_ happen; every blurred timeline, where the ending result was yet to be decided.

Admittedly, he usually tried to ignore this because it was all too…vast, too much; he _knew_ so much, and it was terrible, it was a burden, it was a _curse_; because only he could see it and it clouded his mind. It preyed heavily on him; quite literally. All of this was supposed to be _shared_; the timelines and time stitches and events; it was supposed to be shared out and carried by all the other Time Lords. But he was the only one left and so it all fell to him; he had to carry _everything_, and he could only just barely manage it.

He sifted through a dizzying blend of colours; in the spectrum and beyond it; through odd shapes and illusions; sporadic events and intertwining lines, looking for one he knew he should not really look for. He passed through blue-tinged hues of births, grey, bleak deaths; the rage-filled, sadness of so many wars, so much suffering. He felt the buzz of so many lives; millions and millions of people. So many, that there was no adequate number…

He found her. Rose. Most people's timelines looked like a spiral of DNA; complicated, ever-changing, depending on such trivial decisions. Whether to go into work or to take a sick day. Whether to take the bus or a taxi. Whether to call the new dog Iago or Cassio…so, so many implications that could change and alter a timeline. But not Rose's. He couldn't even see hers very clearly; it was nothing more than a small gold blip to him. She was tied in too tightly to established events, to history, to the daunting unknown of the universe; tied too tightly to him. Anything, anything at all could affect her timeline; she was as temporal and changing as time itself. A bit like an anomaly.

He saw the decisions she had made up to about…the age of nineteen, and everything that could have happened to her if things had gone the other way. If she'd gone out to play in the street one day, when she was twelve rather than staying in and doing her English homework; if she'd attended that Chemistry lesson on Exothermic and Endothermic reactions rather than skiving off it and hanging round _Boots_ with Shareen and Keisha…then there was the turning point; the decision to come with him, and then her timeline had spun wildly off the scale.

If he tried hard, if he concentrated and broke his own rules, he could read her future; read what would happen; but it would be irrelevant and pointless because that future would have changed in the very next nanosecond. He could see her staying with him until she was old, wrinkled and too frail to run anymore, and yet tomorrow, she could turn around and tell him she wanted to stay with her mum...he didn't think she would, but her timelines were just so erratic. He didn't know, and he didn't want to know, either.

With every ounce of his self-control, he pulled himself back from the golden glimmer of Rose's timeline and forced himself to look at all the other branches leading off and intersecting with hers; the thin silver thread that represented himself was most dominant-yet he didn't want to read that, either; even if it were possible; then there were Jackie's, Mickey's Pete's…every person that Rose had ever met and would ever and could ever meet. He skimmed over the unhelpful ones; ones that he had no business in looking at and dipped in when he found four likely-looking spools of life; sticking out like Velcro hooks.

The timelines of the boys who had bullied her were frail-looking and chained. Quite disjointed, as if unfinished and incomplete, though they all had one fixed, unchangeable event in common. A chance meeting with _him_ one day in early summer in 1997, when they were about ten…and then again about five seconds later. Hmm. He lifted the timelines out of the general hubbub of time-noise and into a clear, nearly empty corner of his mind so that he could look at them more objectively. They were, all of them, boys from a dodgy estate; poorly cared for, poorly brought up. They'd shoplifted sweets and small, minor things in their childhood; _Mars Bars, _pens, CD's. Then, as they'd entered their teens they'd got into all sorts of gun crime, gangs; spells in young offenders institutes…everything from robbery to assault and terms in prison.

The boy who Rose had told him had asked her out seemed to separate from the others, not long after his encounter with the Doctor. Good. So whatever, he _had_ or _would_ say to them would work…

The Doctor scrutinised the troughs and low, blurry points of the boys' timelines; points where he could intervene and change things to his own willing if he wanted to; arrests never made; affairs never discovered; evidence never found…the Doctor could interfere. If he wanted to, that is. He could make a difference. He could see the number of people; women, wives, girlfriends, children and members of the public whose lives would be changed irrevocably when they crossed with those of the remaining three boys; how much suffering and hate these three so very insignificant human boys would cause.

But if he changed this…manipulated that…he could prevent all that, and it wouldn't have any major knock-on effects, either. He could see that. No paradoxes, no threats to mankind…nothing dangerous.

It was _right_, wasn't it…to do this? Choose route A; do nothing and let time play out like a tape; let all those people suffer. The families of those they would beat up, kill, maim for life. The lives of their children that they would neglect and walk out on. Their many girlfriends they would beat, threaten and steal from. Or route B; where he stuck his nose in, and shifted things around a bit and everyone would end up a lot happier. There were no established events involved, he wouldn't really be breaking any rules, would he? Doing nothing, when you have the ability to do _something_ is just as morally wrong as the original suffering you can prevent…isn't it? Better to make a stand…do what's right. Yes?

The Doctor was undecided. Undecided and uncertain; he could taste his own anxiety, his own unwillingness to break his Time Lord laws; laws that decreed that Time Lords should not get involved, should not interfere; it was burning at the back of his throat and spinning like a twister through his mind; it made his head hurt and feel muddled.

He hated feeling uncertain; sort of constrained by his own power; it made him feel vulnerable. Yet, he'd been disobeying Time Lord rules for centuries; interfering and disregarding old traditions, but ultimately, _helping_ those who needed him.

A quiet, rational voice in his mind; his conscience, that still clung on to the last whisps of Gallifrey and all its rules and ways of doing things, asked him, _'Are you doing this because it's the right thing to do, or are you doing it as an act of revenge?'_

The Doctor swallowed, stumped by his own thoughts. What _was _his motivation for influencing the courses of these timelines? Because he could see what events he could set into motion. He knew exactly what he could do; from the timelines in front of him, he could see the exact points at which he could step in. It would be so simple, and he would _feel_ so much better; it would quell so much of his anger.

The layer of his mind, that had been busy going through _1984_ slowly paused, and filtered through several images of Rose. He saw her, sitting huddled against a tree, playing with blades of grass; her face pale and crumpled as silent tears tracked their way down her cheeks; the _look_ on her face as he'd caught up with her in the street and pulled her round to face him; she'd looked both lost and defiant; the way she'd shrieked and giggled childishly as she'd danced away from him around the console after she'd got 'Wannabe' stuck in his head.

'_I'm doing it for her,'_ he admitted to himself, honestly. He clenched his teeth together and set his jaw; his eyes darkening, with grit and determination so that he didn't appear to be nearly as human as he usually did.

It was only as he wrenched himself out of his own mind, like waking up from a deep but perplexing slumber and set the TARDIS' coordinates back to 1997 that he realised that he had not quite answered his own question.


	9. Chapter 9

Sherbet Fountain:

Back to 1997

**Disclaimer:** (To the tune of 'Here come the girls') I own the booooys!

**Author's Note:** Double update, yeah? Sorry, it's been a while. A-levels still rule my life, but Doctor Who takes up most of my head. There's a bit of a slump going on at the minute, isn't there? No Torchwood, not promise of Doctor Who returning in March. Or does Easter count? Oh, I suppose. You know what I want? Ooh dear, I sound like the Doctor in one of the earlier chapters of this...but what I really, really want is a new set of BBC books. With Rose and the Doctor in Pete's world. Because if they can write a story about _Martha _(honestly isn't as good as it sounds), then why not? Just a thought I had today. On with the story, yeah? Ooh, actually, does anyone know of any good Twilight/Doctor who cross-overs? I'm in that sort of a mood, yeah. Feel free to let me know about what you think of the latest two chapters.

* * *

Today; Wednesday July the 2nd 1997 had the potential to be as fragile as the day Pete Tyler died in 1987. The balance of time and criss-crossing events was just as precarious. Weaker than a dieter's resolve in a chocolate shop.

He was leaving messages to his past self and crossing timelines all over the place, though he was being extremely clever about it. With a bit of jiggery-pokery he'd lightly 'sonic-screwdrivered' the Sherbet Fountains, (which Rose had thankfully left on the captain's chair) so that the sherbet would expand and accelerate at the speed of a bullet once they came within a one-mile radius of another sonic device-after they'd been activated, of course, but he'd do that later. Which was good, as he and Rose had brushed extremely close to the boys in that grotty back alley a few hours ago. He'd been carrying his Sonic Screwdriver in his pocket. _He'd_ made the Sherbet Fountains explode. Well…a past-self/future-self combination Doctor had. Funny, confusing, mind-bending thing, fiddling with Time.

He'd parked the TARDIS a street away from the park where the boys had ambushed the younger Rose, about an hour after their original landing in 1997. His past self and Rose would have been making strained small talk with June, at that point.

In the park, the four boys had been grouped together, exchanging shifty looks, looking uneasy as they shared a cigarette between them-grey spirals of thick, nasty-smelling smoke hovering above their heads. He'd felt his insides turn to stone, felt repressed fury shiver behind his eyes as he'd walked past a large wet patch on the concrete path beside the pond, stained with brilliant-white mounds of damp sherbet and slimy green algae, like rank entrails where the little Rose had been attacked.

It had felt like a crime scene to him. Fright and distress hung in the air-invisible but there and he could once more hear the echoes of Rose's high-pitched shrieks and pleas; hear the slosh of the algae as it was fished out of the pond; feel Rose's hand squeeze his so tightly it was almost painful.

The Doctor had been surprised to find that the boys had dumped their coats in the grass whilst they'd smoked; he'd imagined that thuggish boys like those would have an almost uniform-like attachment to their coats. Or perhaps they were just thick. On closer inspection, though, he saw that they were fleece-lined and heavy, and though England rarely saw scorching-hot summers this side of 2056, it was still rather warm.

It had been a good few centuries since he'd planted evidence, but he'd calmly managed to hide a Sherbet Fountain in the hood of each coat; simply by ambling past and crouching down, pretending to tie his shoelaces. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Another thing he'd have to remember never to say-or think, again.

He hadn't been worried about the boys discovering them, purely because he'd seen for himself that his desired intention would work successfully and the boys would be caked in sherbet, not unlike the little Rose had been, _and_ because he'd had an inkling that these oafish boys weren't particularly attentive to anything they couldn't vandalise.

Now, he stood leaning casually against the mouth of a murky alley hidden behind a high wall with a trim of barbed wire snaked around the top-seemingly more for menacing decoration than anything else. It really _was _very narrow; two people wouldn't be able to walk side-by-side comfortably, and he was more than blocking the exit. Well, his stance was casual; hands in his pockets, ankles crossed, but his eyes were alert and hard, like granite; his teeth clenched together so tightly that it was making his jaw ache.

Only another two minutes, three seconds and twenty-seven nanoseconds and they'd be here…

Sure enough, he heard stupid-sounding guffaws and crude, crass jokes as four pairs of feet neared the alley, trodding on bits of broken glass and kicking plastic bottles out of the way before the boys appeared at the dank, opposite end of the alley to him.

They were thickset boys; boorish and hard-faced with terrible hair cuts and ugly smirks. They smelled, too; of greasy hair, unwashed bodies, bad breath and smoke. They were a lot bigger than Rose had been when she was younger; it was easy to see why she had been terrified of them; why they still held some sort of manipulative hold over her, even now. Human childhood fears weren't especially easy to outgrow and sweep under the carpet, no matter how many years passed. Considering the horrifying, awful torment Rose had been subjected to, he really couldn't blame her for running away. It was her human instinct; not cowardice or weakness, which, if he knew Rose, (and he most certainly _did_,) is what she would undoubtedly be berating herself for.

The Doctor's eyes bristled. These boys had given Rose scars that were still tender even now. And they'd made her cry. That was reason enough, he decided. He didn't like seeing Rose cry. Angry, afraid, sulky, tired and grouchy he could deal with; a cup of tea and a good reel of nonsensical banter and a hug or two would normally sort her out, but crying? Oh no. It made him feel…strange. Set him panicking. Mortified. Worried. Useless; a bit like Mickey the Idiot. Because Rose was always so bubbly and contagiously happy; cracking smiles all over and laughing at anything and everything; it was one of the things he enjoyed so much about having her traveling with him; the way she mad him _feel_ light-hearted. Watching her crumble made him less sure of himself; ridiculously inexperienced.

It made him feel…_human_.

So, to say he was displeased was an understatement. And a half.

He stared resolutely at the mud-encrusted ground, with cigarette ends and shards of glass clumped together at the sides; a late-afternoon breeze ruffling his hair and sending his coat flapping out behind him.

He did not look up even as he heard the footfalls draw nearer and slow to an impatient stop. Nor did he shift his gaze when a familiar, impertinent voice said, "You're in our way." It was a statement of annoyance rather than anything else, as if the boy were pointing out something that was aggravating him. He was evidently not foolhardy enough to try to intimidate the Doctor; whether it was because he was an adult, or because he was so tall. Or perhaps it was the expression on his face which clearly said, 'Really-don't-bother.'

"Am I?" asked the Doctor, mildly, looking up from the ground, quite unconcerned. "Sorry."

He did not move.

The boys stared at the Doctor, wrong-footed, but then their expressions grew more gloating; eyebrows raising in incredulity, as if the Doctor were a teacher who had attempted to tell them off-one they'd give no end of hell as a result.

The leader, Daniel, exchanged a smirk with the rat-faced boy directly behind him before throwing the Doctor a dirty look.

"You wanna move, mate?" he asked rudely.

The Doctor pulled a face and rubbed the back of his neck, as if giving this some consideration. "Well…no. Not especially."

The boys were quiet for a moment; gaping at him, each with the expression appropriate to catching flies, stupidly, like under-grown, fleshy gargoyles. It was clear that no one had ever answered them back before. Oh well, first time for everything.

The boy on Daniel's left; one with yellowing teeth and a cheap-looking gold stud in his ear pointed a grubby finger at the Doctor.

"'Ee's the geezer from the shop in'ee?"

The Doctor simply smiled, pleasantly, as if the boy had wished him a 'good afternoon and ignored him. And not just because he sounded like a toothless gorilla attempting to speak. If Rose were with him, she would have instantly recognised that he was only ever this calm when he was extremely angry, and she would have done her utmost to placate him; chatting nineteen to the dozen to take his mind of things, to side-track him. Good at that, she was. But Rose _wasn't_ here, he reasoned and so, his calm mask never flinching, he delved into his jacket pocket and brought out his Sonic Screwdriver, holding it up for Daniel and his cronies to see.

They stared at it as if he'd just produced a lawnmower out of thin air.

"You know what this can do now?" he said brightly, grinning at his Sonic Screwdriver proudly, like a science teacher about to give a demonstration on something he was particularly enthusiastic about to a class of disinterested pupils.

His grin faded and he gave the Sonic Screwdriver a small twist. "Resonate concrete."

There was a rumble of crumbling brickwork and an almighty crash, like a drum kit being dropped from a great height, as a small section of the wall; a good distance behind the boys came crashing down in a thick cloud of dust. It fell in a pile at the other end of the alley, effectively preventing the boys from retreating the way they had come.

Though the brickwork had fallen nowhere near the boys, (the Doctor had at least, made sure of that) they all got a shock and jumped about a foot in the air, as if they'd been electrocuted-shouting and swearing indignantly.

They gawped at the Doctor in disbelief. Unsettled. Suspicious. Clearly, they'd never seen a tall, thin stranger cause a wall to fall down with a silver torch…thing. Not many people could say they had, actually. The littlest boy, standing at the back, wearing the grotty, wooly QPR hat wheeled around at the pile of bricks and back at the Doctor, looking awed.

The Doctor frowned at the mess of rubble, dissatisfied. "Hmm…bit messy, that," he remarked, peering closely at his Sonic Screwdriver. "Not bad, though for a first…And you can be quiet," he ordered severely, interrupting himself as Daniel began to say something derogatory.

He glared at Daniel in acute distaste. Daniel promptly shut up; shocked.

"Better," approved the Doctor. "Right then, Mr. Todd, Mr. Shelding, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Coxon," he addressed them all by name with a dip of his head and a grimace, sounding rather bored but urgent, as if he were running short on time. "I'm only going to say this just the once so un-plug your ears and pay attention…ta."

There was a series of loud gasps and angry noises, and all the boys' stares became beady and hostile. Apparently they didn't like the fact that the Doctor knew their names.

"How d'you…!"

"What the…?"

"Who the fu…"

"Same way as I know it was _you_ who nicked Kevin's brother's _Walkman_…_you_ who wrecked _his_ bike and _you_ who told the McNally brothers where _he_ keeps his stash of Lambrini..okie-doki?" reeled off the Doctor at break-neck speed, expression lazy, as if they'd asked him a particularly stupid question, pointing backwards and forwards at each of the boys.

There was a crackle of growled threats and shuffling as the Doctor implicated each boy, letting slip details they'd been keeping quiet; details he'd learnt from having a quick nose around their timelines, as one might normally read a newspaper…

Four pairs of scowling, mistrustful eyes were trained on the Doctor, like a pack of wolves assessing a possible threat, but he couldn't help but notice that their shoulders had slumped slightly-they'd lost some of their bravado. He sighed as he caught the gist of their wounded, angry mutters and half-formed insults, as he'd been right in the middle of saying something and they'd interrupted him. He didn't like being interrupted by people he wasn't fond of. Now he'd lost his thread…where?…oh, yes…

"Oi!" he raised his voice, crossly and glowered at them, his knitted eyebrows making him look very fierce. "I hadn't finished," he said leisurely, by way of explanation, making no apologies.

He glanced up at the sky as if checking his watch, before tugging on the lapels of his coat, sharply. "Right then," he chirped. "Can't stand round like a bottle of milk all day, so I'll just get straight to it, shall I? Good," he said stoutly, without waiting for a reply, and he narrowed his eyes at them, lowering his voice. He could shout at them, of course he could…but he had a feeling that he'd get his point across much better if he was quiet-that was usually the case, anyway. Nine times out of ten.

"Rose Tyler," he announced flatly, without preamble. A ripple of recognition passed through the group of boys. The pale, wiry boy in the QPR hat looked uneasily at Daniel for his lead, and even the chubby boy with the yellow teeth began to pull on the back of his gold stud.

"Oh, you've heard of her, then? Ah, that's good," grinned the Doctor, feigning delight. "Leave her alone," he said in the same breath, not missing a beat, the grin still plastered on his face. His face hardened, and became serious. "Completely alone," he finished, sharply. There was a storm brewing behind his eyes…

"We ain't done nothing to her," retorted Daniel, and it was obvious that he was trying to be his usual, threatening; lumbering self-but he didn't sound nearly as cocky as before.

"Dunno what you mean, Mister," added the chubby box next to him.

"Not got nothing to do wiv' you though 'as it? 'Oo you, then-'er dad?" chipped in the rat-faced boy with a scabby chin.

The little QPR-hat-boy kept quiet.

The Doctor rubbed beneath his eye, uncomfortably. He had expected them to deny it; no doubts there; it was the sort of typical, cowardly behavior of boys like them. No; that wasn't what he was most bothered about. In fact, he wasn't sure _what_ he was most bothered about; their horrific grammar or their implications that he was Rose's…dad. Eurgh. Hypothetically, metaphorically…his feelings for her; not that he _did_ have feelings for her…well of course he _did_ have, you know…not that he _didn't_…whatever he _did_ feel…and he wasn't saying that he _did_ because…oh dear; he was burbling, even inside his own mind. Anyway…the _point_ was that he held no fatherly affection for Rose…so there. Now…time to close down that particular web of thoughts and emotions before he let them get out of hand. Not that there was anything to _get_ out of hand. Or should that be 'head'? Whatever. Grammar, grammar-their grammar was atrocious…concentrate on that!

The Doctor regarded them appraisingly and wrinkled his nose, as if he could smell something unpleasant.

"You know," he said thoughtfully. "At the risk of sounding like Henry Higgins, I really can't understand why so many English people can't speak English properly… "'Not got nothing' is a double negative," he tutted in exasperation. "What on Earth do they teach you at school? Besides how to _torment_ other children?"

The steel in his voice was back again. "Because I _know_," he went on coolly. "I know what you did to Rose Tyler, what you've been doing to her for years. I've seen it."

The back alley was suddenly deathly quiet, and although the Doctor was speaking in barely more than a murmur, the boys could hear every word he was saying, and there was absolute _power_ and _authority _leaking out of each one. They had no choice but to listen; they couldn't _help_ but listen.

"And it stops. Today. Right now. Because I say so," said the Doctor harshly, his voice low and chipped, like ice. His eyes held none of their customary kindness; they weren't shining and youthful. They were hard and unforgiving. "Don't call her _anything_. Don't insult her. Or her mum. Don't touch her; don't _talk _to her; don't even _look_ at her!"

The Doctor was surprised at how fiercely protective, even _possessive_ he sounded of her. It unnerved him; he hadn't thought about her like that before; he hadn't thought he was _capable_ of seeing her like that, yet all of this had just spilled out of his mouth like a torrent of water; unconsciously, unthinkingly, yet he knew that his words were absolutely and completely genuine. They _meant_ something, even if he wasn't sure _why_.

The boys listened in rapt, unshakable attention; eyes wide and mouths slack. All pretence had gone. Maybe they really _were_ listening.

"Because anything, _anything_ you do to her, will happen to you," he told them matter-of-factly, unfeelingly, even.

There was a long, stiff silence as the Doctor glowered at them, but then his anger seemed to melt. He raised his eyebrows at the boys up to an almost comical height and twisted the Sonic Screwdriver with an elaborate flick of his wrist.

"_Now_…they're all 'sonicked-up.'! So in about ooh…three minutes? I'm going to prove myself right. Good, eh?" he chirped brightly, looking immensely pleased with himself. "What was it you did to her today?" he asked them, pretending he'd forgotten; screwing his face up in an effort to remember. The boys looked at him, blankly.

"Oh, that's right!" he enthused, triumphantly. "Yeah, you covered her in sherbet, didn't you? Yeah…" His tone was cheerfully and very purposefully ironic as he nodded, as if to clarify this. "You're not _that_ fond of those coats, are you?" he asked offhandedly, as if double-checking a minor, insignificant detail. Before they could even register the Doctor's impromptu change of topic, he tapped the side of his nose, importantly, grinned like a lunatic, then barged through the tiny gap between Daniel and his chubby friend whistling, '_I've grown accustomed to her face_.'

The Doctor waited, at the bottom of the alley; it was shadowy and dank and smelled like a public toilet, listening as the boys decided to carry on walking and rounded the corner, walking right into Rose and his past-self. Three seconds later, there was a loud _pop_, and he knew that the boys had found themselves knocked to their feet covered in white, scratchy sherbet. He squinted up towards the main estate; the ugly, pebble-dashed grey blocks of flats, run-down garages and open areas of cracked tarmac.

Rose was there, somewhere, lying tucked up on a squashy pink settee being fussed over by a nightmarish yet kind-hearted old neighbour, in a makeshift nightie, probably watching cartoons, nibbling on biscuits. She was also, possibly dozing off on Jackie's shoulder in front of a horrifically girlie DVD, a plate of egg and chips balanced on her knee. The younger Rose they'd rescued in 1997 and the older, tired Rose he'd left in 2006. Oh, and another one. Just around the corner, a suspicious Rose was giving his past self a 'Jackie' stare, demanding to know how the boys had ended up with sherbet all over them; surprised and disbelieving.

Three Rose Tylers, and not a single one with him. Time he was off. Back to Rose. Well…later. Soon. He still had something to check.


	10. Chapter 10

Sherbet Fountain:

Old Phil

**Disclaimer: **BBC/RTD

**Author's Note:** Happy Easter! Planet of the Dead, yeah? Anyone fancies a long, rambling chat about it...PM me. Personally, I was disappointed because the Doctor was so...'We were made for each other' 'We make...something about a couple-can't remember exact words...'???? Really? All I'm saying is, look, RTD, this is David Tennant's swansong. He has made DW what it is today. He was voted the most popular Doctor. Please. Please. Stop messing it up m'kay? The 'Stolen Earth' was the last episode that I thought was handled well. Anyway. About this story. The end is approaching. I've finished it; it just needs tidying up. Let me know what you think of it.

* * *

Nobody sat next to Old Phil. Not unless you went in for that old eyes-caved-into-your-skull look. Rumour had it that, whilst he was doing time, he scorched off someone's little toe for banging into his table and jostling his beaker of water. He was one of those dangerous, shady characters who seemed to give off 'I'm trouble, don't cross me' vibes like stale body odour.

Unfriendly and rough as the roads. He was a massive, lumbering ogre of a man in his late fifties with a shaved head, gammon-coloured forearms covered with heavy common-looking tattoos, chunky gold medallion rings on each finger, missing teeth and a permanent leer on his face, as if he were constantly thinking of ways in which he could crush a person's shinbone without using direct force. Sank pint after pint of bitter with gristly pork scratchings in here, most nights. Picked his ear, belched out loud, and liked carving expletives in the chipped varnish of the wooden tables with his car keys.

He sat at table in the very back nook of the pub, beneath the disused dartboard. Round puncture-holes from poorly aimed darts cluttered the plaster wall behind his head, as he always sat facing the door, his eyes flickering round the pub, shiftily. He had grown slightly paranoid and overly evasive with age. Not surprising, really; the amount of people he'd managed to upset, incriminate and swindle over the years, he was bound to have made a few enemies.

Why he was called 'Old Phil' though, was anyone's guess, seeing as he was called Daniel Todd, not Phil anything. Most people reckoned it was a name he'd picked up during his first stretch in Juvy, though of course, it was not a question anyone was ever stupid enough to raise. His usual table, with the cigarette burn (from back when the sale of nicotine and tobacco had been legal) in the upholstery of the armed chair, was unofficially Old Phil's table.

You _knew _that nobody sat there but him, in the same way as you knew not to cross the road when the traffic lights were on green. So when a tall man in a brown-pinstriped suit and long brown coat ambled in from the cold night air, hands shoved in his pockets and sat down at Old Phil's table like he owned the place, Marie, the barmaid couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for him.

She leaned her elbows against the sticky surface of the bar, watching him. She definitely hadn't seen him in here before; he seemed youngish, younger than her; early thirties perhaps, and quite good-looking in a boyish sort of way. He was looking around the pub, ankles crossed and resting against the support bar at the base of the table, taking in the tatty red carpet, stained tables, winking fruit machine in the corner that was beeping alternately and the wooden paneling around the walls that was splintering off, with an expression of mild interest.

It was a dodgy pub in a dodgy end of London; she'd only agreed to work there in order to pay off the debts she'd managed to strike up in her early twenties. You wouldn't set foot in a dump like this unless you really had to. Old Phil had slouched off to the toilets and he would come back to see this skinny man sitting at his table…Marie smoothed out one of the green bar towels anxiously.

Normally, her approach was to stay out of it; smile and serve punters without getting involved, unless things started to really kick off. But this man, he was just sitting there, oblivious to his predicament; a man who had trundled into the lion's den with his eyes squeezed firmly shut. He was a bit alright looking, wasn't he? A warning couldn't hurt, she decided, sliding her first finger out of her mouth, where she'd been chewing on a hangnail and slinking out from behind the bar towards Old Phil's table. The man, seeing her make a beeline for him, grinned at her and rested his chin on the heel of his hand.

She sent him one of her most flirtatious smiles, chest thrown out, wiggling her hips as she walked. "All right, my darling?" she cooed at him as she reached him. "Can I get you a drink of anything?" She very obviously leaned over to collect three of Old Phil's empty glasses, white foam splashed across the sides, not-so-subtly showing off rather a lot of cleavage. She straightened up, looking at him expectantly, eyebrows raised slightly. The man glanced in bemusement from the glasses in-between her fingers, fleetingly to her chest and then back up to her with a taken-aback look on his face that very clearly said, 'What on Earth did you do that for?'

"I-I'm not staying," said the man apologetically, with a wry shake of his head, gesturing at Old Phil's vacated seat. "Just waiting for someone." He shot her a disarmingly wide smile, all chirp and enthusiasm and she couldn't help but titter at his nerve.

"I'd wait by the bar, mate, really I would," she tossed her head in the direction of the shabby bar, reprovingly, but still smirking at him from underneath her lashes. "This is Old Phil's table and he doesn't like company."

"Hmm. _Old Phil_," echoed the man, over-enunciating each syllable, as if he were trying to wrap a new sound around his teeth. He said it with a hint of irony and amusement, but his eyes had suddenly turned very dark, penetrating, even, and he tapped out a short three-beat rhythm on the table with his long fingers.

Marie didn't miss the way his expression hardened.

"Oi," she said firmly, pointing a finger of her free hand at him. "I don't want any trouble off you, mind. I'd hate to have to make you wait outside." She said it jokingly, almost as if she were a mother scolding her little boy, but without really meaning it, her smile cheeky and glossy, but the intent was there. She _would_ chuck him out if she had to.

"Oh, no trouble," promised the man brightly, waving away the suggestion airily as if nothing had been further from his mind. He winked at her. "Me and Old Phil, we go way back."

Marie laughed and reached over to ruffle his hair. "Give over, my darling. You ain't old enough."

Glasses in her hand, she turned away and retreated back to the bar. She deposited the empty glasses on the front before walking round to the side, to where a small section lifted up. Before going through, she looked back over her shoulder at the man, (who much to her chagrin, didn't seem to be watching her bum, like most of the other drinkers) and mouthed the word 'Behave' at him. He nodded at her in earnest, giving her a look that was half-innocent, half-charming before the heavy wooden door of the men's toilets squeaked open on its hinges behind him and his eyes immediately flickered to the hulking man in the doorway.

Old Phil stood frozen in the arch between the toilets and the main pub for a moment, his spiteful eyes locked on the stranger sitting at his table. He evidently recognised him and, rather than charging towards him like an angry bull and bodily lifting him up out of his seat by his tie as Marie half-feared he would, he seemed a tad…uneasy. The young man in the suit sat very still, watching him like a hawk with the utmost mistrust. He quirked an eyebrow up at Old Phil, as if to say, 'Well, are you sitting down, or what?'

Old Phil shot a nasty look at Marie, seeing her looking on and she very hastily decided that now would be a good time to empty the glass-washer, whether it needed doing or not, scurrying to the other end of the bar.

Crossing from the toilets to his table in four strides, Old Phil violently pulled back his chair from the table with so much force that it rocked back on its back legs, before it settled and threw himself into it, glaring at the man opposite him as if he would like nothing better than to rip him limb from limb.

The man didn't seem at all fazed. He simply smiled at Old Phil pleasantly, and said in a quiet, steely voice, "Hello, Danny Boy."

Old Phil growled at him in return, baring his teeth at the man like a rabid dog, his shoulders squared, gaze hostile. "You," he spat. "Again."

"Me, again" agreed the man flatly, as if Old Phil had pointed out that he was inconveniencing him. "How long have you been called 'Old Phil', then?" asked the thin man interestedly, looking quite honestly curious, frowning, looking down his nose at the man with his mouth slightly open, as if it were the most ludicrous thing he had ever heard.

Old Phil muttered something unintelligible and pointedly ignored his question. "I knew you'd come," he said through gritted teeth. "Y'always do."

The man pulled on his ear as he considered this. "Yes," he decided, making a face. "I suppose I do, yeah."

"_Every time_," choked out Old Phil, still through teeth gritted so tightly that his jaw was pulsing, his face bright red. He looked seconds away from smashing the man in the face. "Every time somethin'…'appens." Here, he spat out an expletive and thumped the table with his huge fist so that people at the surrounding tables looked over in alarm, before seeing who had made the noise and turning back round, hurriedly.

"You're _there_. Day we got done for the _Blockbusters_ job, day I got sent down for GBH, day Sarah smashed up my car wiv' a vase, day she chucked me out, day I were in court for hittin' that copper…you're _there_."

He spoke quickly and venomously, spitting out his consonants, letting out this torrent of verbal abuse, as if his words could inflict pain on this strange man, coming out thick and fast, as if they'd been let out from a dam in his chest, his voice rising with hate.

"I've _seen_ ya. You're always part of the crowds or round the corner. You…for more than thirty years. You never say anythin', you just _stand_ there, innit?! And now my son's been banged up, you're here again!"

The man nodded in offhand confirmation. "Yep," he said, popping the 'p.'

Old Phil twisted one of the rings on his right hand round and round, then moved onto the next finger, then did the same with his left hand until he'd loosened all the rings on both hand, avoiding the other man's eyes.

"Is it so ya can check I'm miserable?" he asked at last, fury radiating from his eyes as he looked up at the strange man.

The man swerved around his question. "You made _her_ miserable," he replied, glowering at him, his eyes dark and stormy.

"I've made a lot of people miserable!" raged Old Phil, thumping the table again in bad temper. He winced as he hurt his hand. Massaging his knuckles vigorously he scowled at the other man, his greying eyebrows furrowing. "No one else has ever followed me round for thirty years just to prove a bleedin' point!

"Nobody else was Rose Tyler," retorted the man defiantly, quiet pride shining out of his eyes.

Old Phil shook his head at the man in disgust. "Look, mate, the stuff we did to 'er…we were just kids!"

"So was she!"

"It were years and years ago!" protested Old Phil; his hands still shaking, expression evasive. He laid his palms flat against the grubby tabletop and stared down at his dirty fingernails. "She'd be about my age now, yeah? Why's it still matter?" he asked, running a stressed hand over his shaved head.

The man looked at him sharply, his dark brown eyes boring right through him. It was a look of dislike, pity, anger and deep-set loyalty.

"Because no matter how old she gets, she's still going to remember," he said quietly, but in such a way that Old Phil heard every word he said and it sent a small shiver up his spine; the same sort of shiver of apprehension he always got when he was arrested, that feeling that he'd bitten off more than he could chew.

Old Phil craned round in his seat to look at the bar, checking to see if the barmaid was listening in. Satisfied that she was still arranging glasses on shelves, he closed a hand around his keys in his pocket and looked the man opposite him up and down; his eyes taking in his thick coat, crumpled suit and unruly hair.

"Who _are_ ya?" he blurted out bluntly. "You…you're always dressed the same. You ain't aged. You used to look older'n me. Now you look younger."

The man chuckled, as if he found his Old Phil's comments quite funny, before leaning forwards on his elbows, the sleeve of his coat resting in a spillage of beer. "I'm the Doctor," he said bitingly, voice brittle, expression severe so that it sounded like both a threat and a warning.

"And you've got somethin' to do wiv' Tyler?"

The 'Doctor' man grinned humourlessly. "You could say that, yeah."

Old Phil brought his keys out of his pocket and began tapping a bronze, Yale key incessantly against the table; a nervous tic. The Doctor looked down at the jingling keys, distastefully and Old Phil stopped but used one of the keys to pick out something brown-looking from one of his fingernails.

"I 'fink I saw her," he said gruffly, muttering like a teenaged boy. His whole body had tensed, his hands clenched into fists, neck jutting out. He seemed uncomfortable; on edge. "That day…they day you warned us…made that wall collapse. I saw her. I told the others-Fat Kev and them…I told them but they didn't believe me. She were _older_…"

Old Phil mashed his face into his hands in irritation and scrubbed, unable to explain himself properly, sounding half-doubting and disbelieving. "The bird who was wiv' ya in the shop, yeah? That was her, innit? The Tyler bint. Then down that alley…she picked me up an' I recognised 'er. Tell by the eyes, yeah And 'er chin? I said 'Tyler' to 'er and' she nodded. It were 'er, I'm tellin' ya! She were twenny! It were 1997 and she were twenny!"

Old Phil's voice had risen to a paranoid shout and he was on his feet, the rickety table rocking from side to side at the force of the movement, bellowing down at the Doctor, angry tears starting to build up in his eyes, a key held between each finger so that it looked like he had sprouted claws.

Everyone in the pub had swiveled round in their seats to look at the source of the commotion, staring at Old Phil curiously, glasses halfway to their mouths.

Marie, the barmaid, put down the glasses in her hands and leaned across the bar. Shaking her hair out of her eyes she said, "Take it outside please, gents." She looked wary of Old Phil, but her voice was firm. It was an order, not a request.

The Doctor looked up at Old Phil, serenely, unimpressed at his outburst. He kicked the leg of his chair underneath the table to get him to sit down, again.

Breathing heavily, as if he had been running for a long time, Old Phil did so and the Doctor shook his head at him, dubiously.

"You're saying you saw Rose Tyler when she was _twenty_," said the Doctor slowly, patronisingly, as if he were talking to a toddler. "On the same day as you emptied two Sherbet Fountains over her head and left her screaming for her mum, trussed up in algae like a pond-turkey…when she was _ten_?"

Old Phil faltered, as if he were thinking about denying it, before nodding, slowly. "Yeah."

The Doctor rested his chin in his hand and smiled dryly, as if Old Phil had just let him in on an elaborate yet stilted joke. The look he gave him was condescending, and falsely patient. "Two Rose Tylers?" he said with a laugh. "Think about what you're saying."

"It were Rose!" snapped Old Phil. "Swear on my life it were."

"I'm sure it was," said the Doctor, consolingly looking around the pub distractedly, in a tone that said he clearly didn't believe him. Sighing, he got to his feet and pushed his chair in, looking for all intents and purposes as if he were about to leave.

Evidently panicking, Old Phil leaned over the table and grasped a tight hold of the Doctor's coat. The Doctor pulled a face at the hammy fist that was clutching his clothes and looked at him, pointedly.

"Every stinkin' time I walk out onto the street I s'pect to see one of you. You or her. S'like, every silly blonde cow I see I 'fink it's her. S'like she's gonna be waitin' for me. An' _you_! You never stop followin' me. But 'er…she ain't…it ain't normal!" howled Old Phil, fisting a tighter hold on the Doctor.

The Doctor shook himself out of Old Phil's grasp, jerkily.

"Daniel," he said harshly, using his proper name for the first time that night. Old Phil flinched and sniffed, his shoulders trembling. "You're old. You're paranoid. And your guilt has driven you bonkers," he told him matter-of-factly, almost dismissively, as if he'd established all he came for. "Bye."

The Doctor smartly sidestepped around the table and, shoving his hands into his pockets, he made his way over to the bar. Marie looked unsurely over the Doctor's shoulder at Old Phil, who appeared to be crying babyishly, hurling abuse at anyone who looked over at him. "What ya lookin' at? I'll come over there and…"

The Doctor leaned sideways against the bar with his ankles crossed. He smiled winningly at Marie, who tutted back, but who couldn't quite keep from smiling at him, the corners of her mouth crinkling. "Don't give the big fella more of anything stronger than an orange juice," he advised her. "He'll have someone's eye out. Try some horse sedatives…they might work," he suggested thoughtfully. "Green ones. Not the yellow."

With another cheeky wink at her, he pushed off from the bar and marched quite cheerfully out of the pub into the blisteringly cold January night air. As the door swung shut behind him, trapping in the smell of drink's fumes, stale beer, old vomit and urine in the drafty entrance-way, he picked out the outline of a blue wooden Police Box standing in the corner of the car park underneath an amber streetlight, and made his way towards it.

There was a loud clash and clatter from inside the pub, followed by angry shouts and the tinkling of shattering glass and he guessed that Old Phil had probably…_possibly_…upended a table.

"Blimey," he muttered under his breath as he crunched across the car park's loose gravel, not too unlike the rough gravelly surface he'd walked across with Rose wrapped around his back almost three nights ago. He felt an odd sense of déjà vu, actually. "2045," he remarked sarcastically, his voice rising in tone for nobody's benefit. "_Barrel _of laughs."

He unlocked the doors, chuntering some faint annoyance about the lack of shrimp canapés and 90's pop-singing companions.


	11. Chapter 11

Sherbet Fountain

Mother knows best. Sometimes.

* * *

**Disclaimer: **Doctor Who is property of the BBC. Any shops, brands, products or magazines you may recognise aren't mine either.**  
**

**Author's Note: **I must apologise for abandoning this story for years. No reason for it, just lots of excuses! I found this on an old memory pen and just couldn't get it out of my head. I want to finish it! So...if you were reading this years ago, sorry and thank you for your reviews. If you're reading this for the first time then, hiya! *waves*

* * *

After what seemed like half an hour, Jackie finally let go of her daughter and Rose smiled back at her gratefully, her eyes misty, mouth wobbling. She was attempting to keep her composure.

Jackie pretended not to notice and reached out to pick something off Rose's shoulder. The movement caused her bracelets to rattle together and the scent of vanilla lingering on her fingers to waft up towards Rose's nostrils. Sweet and synthetic; it was the smell of the setting spray that she used; she must've had a client in today…

Rose glanced down, expecting to see her mum brushing off a stray crumb or a leaf or something but instead she was holding up a tiny, fraying section of her hair for inspection. She felt a tug on her hair as her mum leant forward and Rose wrinkled her nose, inwardly cringing away from a tongue lashing. She could half-guess at what her mum had spotted.

The pet-hate of all hairdressers. _Split-ends. _

Jackie let Rose's hair flop back into place with a dismissive flick of her wrist and then ran the pad of her thumb over her parting, sighing through her nose at the sight of her roots, her face the picture of disapproval.

"Right," she said shortly, tapping Rose's shoulder twice, with the air of a no-nonsense woman on a mission. "Your roots I can live with. Your split-ends, I definitely can't. Bathroom. _Now._"

Rose thought about arguing the point. She did. She'd been thinking longingly of sinking into the squashy sofa and just _sitting_. Not having to move, not having to think, just letting her aching arms and legs have a rest but then she thought about how scruffy she felt.

Her two-day old hair was scraped back and untidy; it felt dry and itchy. She thought about the breakout of spots on her forehead, the sheen of grease on her nose, rolled her eyes at her mum and dutifully trundled in the direction of the bathroom.

It had been _months_ since she'd been here. Her stomach gave a happy jolt as she remembered the creaking floorboards that she hadn't realised she'd forgotten about. Jackie was at her heels, chivvying her along and grumbling something about a hairdresser's daughter having roots and split-ends as being like a dentist having rotten teeth.

She knelt down, with her head tipped forwards over the side of the bath as her mum washed and conditioned her hair for her with the shower head attachment. The coiled metal tubing used to unnerve her at one point; it reminded her of some sort of metallic snake.

Oh, she had forgotten how _uncomfortable_ getting your hair washed like this was; it made your neck ache, cramped your knees, _and_ she had soggy patches on the knees of her jeans from the damp, cork-tiled floor!

When she was younger she used to complain that her mum was too rough when she washed her hair; scrubbing her knuckles into her scalp, wrenching on the tangles, lathering up with so much force that her head bobbed up and down with the movement. Realising, as the shower head was turned off and Rose climbed to her feet, stretching her head back like a tortoise to get rid of the stiffness in her neck, that her mum had still grown no gentler was strangely reassuring.

"Is it just me you try to scalp, or d'you do it to everybody?" Rose asked in teasing wonder, reaching blindly for a wad of toilet roll to dry her wet face, as Jackie wrapped the towel around her head, tucking the ends in neatly.

Water rivulets streamed down Rose's face into her eyes, further smudging her already ruined eye makeup, and so the effect of her sarcasm was rather ruined by her ridiculous appearance.

The day's mascara had stained the delicate area between her lower lash line and the bottom of her eye socket. She looked like she had very dark, ghoulish bags under her eyes.

"Oh, stop your whining, you," Jackie tutted in her best mock-reproving voice, batting Rose on the shoulder with the back of her hand. "I'm not that bad!"

"S'like you were trying to shear a _sheep_," Rose insisted flatly, nodding her head in a falsely patronising manner; the way one does when trying to placate a less than sane person. She'd had plenty of practice at that…

Jackie, who had reached down to put the plug in the bath and turn the hot tap on, straightened up and raised her eyebrows at her.

"Shear a _sheep_?" she repeated incredulously. "I dunno whether the Doctor's been gallivanting round farms with you, or what, but Rose…how the hell would I know how to shear a shee-hee-hee-hee-heep?" she demanded of her, amid a gale of laughter, bending over with her hands resting on her knees, the word 'sheep' almost indistinguishable.

She laughed loudly, in the same way as she normally ever laughed at a _Carry On_ film, leaning against the bath for support, her shoulders shaking.

Rose felt the corners of her mouth twitch involuntarily, as she watched her mum fan herself furiously with her hand, trying to suppress her laughter because it was getting in the way of minor things…like breathing. Still though, she gave her mum a slight frown; it hadn't been _that_ funny, had it? Had her sense of humour changed that much?

But then…slowly, she'd got it. The mental image of her mum trodding gingerly across a farm in her best heels from _Warehouse_, attempting to shear a sheep with hair clippers, scissors and hairspray…it was completely stupid and ridiculous, but then, of course, so was the simile Rose had made. _Where_ she'd got 'shear a sheep' from, of all things…

"Dunno," she admitted, with a titter, shrugging her shoulders. "_Pet Rescue_?"

Her face was deadpan as she said it, her tone purposefully serious, purely for comedic effect because she had known it would set her mum off again. Sure enough, Jackie collapsed into a fresh wave of laughter, and Rose snorted, shaking her head at both herself and her mum, before joining her.

"_Pet Rescue_? How many people d'you know who've got sheep as _pets_ you daft girl? Actually, don't answer that." Jackie half-ranted, half muttered to herself, still breathless with laughter as she pulled a large white towel, and a smaller dark blue one off the towel rail and folded them and put them on the floor beside the bath.

"Mmh," Rose agreed quietly, going over to the toilet, putting the lid down and sitting on it, just as she'd done so, so many times before. She tried wiggling her eyebrows up and down to see if the tightness of the towel had lessened any, but it apparently hadn't and she still felt as if she'd had a facial peel.

"Ooh, one minute!" Jackie instructed her, pointing at the air, looking quite excited about something, as if she'd just had a little brainwave. "I'll _tell_ you what I've got…"

Rose grinned after her, one hand pulling at the bit of the towel that was cutting off the blood circulation to the top of her left ear, as her mum bustled out of the bathroom. She unfastened her boots and pulled off her socks one-handedly, surveying the cupboard-sized bathroom, happily.

Her room on the TARDIS had a bathroom of its own, and it was…fine in its own little way. There was nothing really wrong with it; it was full of cosmetics that she'd picked up from various different centuries: very strong toothpaste that she'd bought at Jack Harkness' persuasion; liquorice and mint stuff that actually re-built the enamel on your teeth and whitening varnish that made it chemically impossible for plaque to build up on your teeth. Rose had better teeth than most 21st century dentists.

Then there was her make-up, of course; a _Maybelline_ mascara from 2019 that was nothing short of a miracle-worker and definitely something she'd rush back into a burning building for, given half the chance. Eye shadow she wasn't too fussed about, she could get by with her tricolor palette from her own time, but she hadn't been able to resist a tiny pot of midnight-black powdered moon rock, (which, oddly enough, could be used as both a cosmetic, and a seasoning in foods) or a china box of fine, jasmine-scented face powder from 1834, and a waxy, foul-tasting lipstick from the 20s.

It was just…it didn't seem to _hold_ as much as this bathroom.

There were two, flaking holes in the wall to the left of the toilet from where the wooden toilet-roll holder had once been attached. It had fallen down at some point, and her mum had just never got round to putting it back up and so the damaged wall had been hastily painted over. Rose used to be able to poke her little finger into the holes, and she would gaze at them in vacant interest, forming pictures from the chipped paint and crumbling plaster as she sat on the toilet or stood brushing her teeth. Now, Rose tried half-heartedly to push her little finger into one of the holes, half-hearted because she knew it wouldn't fit.

It didn't. She could just about get the tip of her nail in.

There were ornaments sitting on the side of the bath, too, on the opposite side to where the shampoo and conditioner stood. Terracotta _ornaments_ of ducks and hens that Jackie had bought on the cheap from _Ikea_. They had no purpose, really, they were just _there_. Two ducks and one hen with a chip in its wing.

Rose had given them names; 'Emma', 'Victoria' and 'Melanie,' after the Spice Girls, of course. They were pointless. They weren't pretty. They got in the way, because she'd always been afraid of knocking them over if she flailed and splashed her arms about too enthusiastically when she was playing mermaids, _and_ you used to have to pick them up and clean underneath them when you were doing the bath…and in that, they illustrated the main difference between this bathroom, and her one on the TARDIS.

The one on the TARDIS didn't have tacky clutter on the side of the bath for no reason. That was what a 'home' was, though, wasn't it? Somewhere crammed full of things you didn't need and bought for the sake of it. What did that make the TARDIS, then? If her bathroom on the TARDIS was decidedly terracotta-duck free, was the TARDIS not her home?

Her thoughts were interrupted as she heard the _thwack-thwack_ of Jackie's approaching footsteps coming back into the room again.

'Keisha's been working in that _Lush_ shop in Covent Garden,' Jackie told her with an impressed nod, as if she thought it was a far wiser choice than space and time travel. 'Says she loves it.' She held out a black and yellow paper bag to Rose. 'Help yourself.'

Rose took it, a strong mixture of floral and citrus smells assaulting her nostrils as she peeked inside. Round, orange-sized ballistics; some brightly-coloured, shimmering iridescently, others pale, pastel-coloured with petals and rosebuds scattered through them. Then there were triangular wedges of soap of all different sizes; a custard-coloured one with an amber honeycomb on the top; a multi-coloured one that looked like it was made of wine gums and a sugary-pink one the exact colour of a marshmallow…it was like a treasure trove for a cosmetic junkie.

'Keisha sent you all this?' asked Rose, momentarily surprised and slightly touched. The thought of someone thinking of her mum warmed her heart. Obviously _she _knew how lovely her mum was and wanted to spoil her, but the fact that Keisha thought so, too…well it was just nice to think that her mum was so highly thought-of and that she had such caring friends. 'That's so nice!'

'I know, isn't it?' said Jackie. She glanced up at the towel on Rose's head and shook her head dolefully. 'Right, I'm going to go and put the dinner on and prepare to do some major hair surgery. Sausage and Mash sound all right?'

'Like heaven,' grinned Rose.

Jackie looked pleased. 'Good. You take your time, darling, OK?'

She trailed a hand down Rose's arm and with a last beam, left her to it.

* * *

Rose had been in the bath for a good half an hour, sat with her knees bent to her chest in cloudy, pale-yellow water, the exact same colour as old-fashioned lemonade.

It was the same way she had been sitting earlier today against a tree in the park in 1997.

When had thinking like this become like second nature to her? There was a time when thinking of the fact that she'd been in another decade merely hours before would have given her a headache. Not now, though.

She squinted at her legs appraisingly. They hadn't been as toned as this…well, ever, really. She secretly felt a bit thrilled; running for your life every other day had its benefits after all.

Leaning back against the side of the bath, she let her arms float up weightlessly by her sides. She let her mind wander over the events of the day. Typical; she'd felt so miserable, felt like sobbing her heart out at so many times and had held it in.

Now, when she was finally alone, when she _could_ let herself cry the tears just wouldn't come. She thought about trying to force a few out, just so they were out of her system, but the hot, steaming water had instantly relaxed her to the point that she just couldn't be bothered.

She felt her eyes glaze over. She saw the faces of the boys; full of hate and menace that jarred against their youthfulness. In her mind's eye she watched June tend to her fragile younger self with all the devotion as if she were her own flesh and blood. She saw the Doctor's stony face; angry and pitying as she'd admitted that she had once been bullied and remembered how safe and contented she had felt as he had wrapped his arms around her; how she never wanted to leave them.

She sighed and shook her head in annoyance with herself and swirled the citrus water around herself with cupped hands, trying to make as much noise as possible. As if the splashing water could drown out her thoughts…

More to distract herself than anything else she reached for the bag of _Lush_ goodies, drops of water dribbling down her arms and dropping down her fingertips and picked up a block of soap that took her fancy.

She proceeded to get washed with a bubblegum-pink bar with white stars shot through it which smelt like candy floss. It felt like she was lathering up all of today's hurt and rinsing away her humiliation.

The thing is; she could take today and let it get to her, let it shake her; allow it to make her feel weak and pathetic. She could sit here in this bath, which was gradually becoming more lukewarm, feel sorry for herself and dwell on what had happened and then go and let her mum comfort her back to her bright, bubbly self. What was stopping her, really?

Already, she could almost sense the disappointment that would flicker in the Doctor's eyes if he knew what was going through her head. _Or_ she could put this to bed right now, put it all behind her and move on.

In the decade and a bit that had passed since the awful events of today had actually happened she hadn't given them that much thought. Was she really going to let it affect her now? Was she not _stronger_ than that? She could just accept that, yeah, she'd been tormented as a child and it had been fairly awful, but then so had a lot of children. At least she'd been picked on by kids and it had been juvenile stuff. Hurtful and destroying, yes, but it could have been so much worse, couldn't it?

She shuddered, thinking of the unbelievable horror stories about children that made the newspapers…

No. Oh no. She had been a victim when she was a child, she was _definitely_ not going to let this bring her down now; the Doctor had taught her far better than that. She _was_ so much better than that. Better than all of those boys put together!

She felt a faint blush of embarrassment creep up on her cheeks. She half-thought about berating herself for being a bit of a softie, for letting it get to her, for needing her mum. That was ridiculous, though, she told herself, firmly. She had been tired. As much as she loved travelling with the Doctor, she couldn't deny the fact that it was exhausting; it was exhilarating and mad and exciting 100% of the time. She was entitled to a moment of weakness, anyway, when things got a bit much.

"M' only human,' she reasoned to herself out loud.

In one fluid motion, she pushed herself to her feet and clambered out of the bath inelegantly, getting water all over the already-damp floor.

She'd had enough of reflecting for one day; she was going to try and not think about it anymore, she was going to refuse to let this spoil her few precious hours on home-leave with her mum. Not when she had much more important things to think about. Like her mum's _amazing_ Sausage and Mash.

* * *

Rose was staring at a grainy, poor-quality photograph of a stone statue taped to the kitchen cupboard, taken with a mobile phone. A tiny bit of the corner at the top left had become unstuck and a crumb of something or other had become lodged in the gluey residue that had been left behind. It was a photo of a Fortuna statue, the Roman goddess of luck, which currently resided in the British Museum, albeit with its right wrist missing.

A statue with more than a passing resemblance to Rose, herself. Identical, actually.

A while ago, on one of her impromptu visits home, a self-satisfied Mickey had shown them the stone Fortuna at the museum, where he'd reluctantly admitted that he'd been doing some volunteer work. Of course, the Doctor had been delighted to discover that this meant that they would be visiting Rome at some point in the near future and Rose, who'd loved doing about the Ancient Romans and their roads and baths in primary school had matched his enthusiasm.

Only Jackie had had misgivings, which had turned out to be quite right. Among other things, Rose had, perhaps foolishly agreed to be a model for a celebrated sculptor, flattered by his praise of her youth and beauty. There had just been this very slight snag in that everything he touched turned into stone…and so a cup of drugged wine and one touch later, a very human, flesh-and-blood Rose had become cold, hard granite. Hardly a roman holiday. The Doctor had saved her, though, eventually. Not that she'd told her mum about it, of course.

The last time the he had brought her home hadn't been an appropriate time to talk about anything, really. He'd taken her to see her mum immediately after their return from the parallel world and Jackie, like Rose had been too shell-shocked and teary at the loss of Mickey to think about anything else.

She'd chewed her freshly painted nails off over the course of one evening, shunned her usual pre-bedtime cup of tea in favour of a glass of wine and had had her first cigarette (or three) since becoming pregnant with Rose, on the balcony overlooking the front of the estate, huddled in Rose's parka against the cold night air.

When Rose had joined her and had remarked with surprise that she didn't know she smoked, Jackie had replied bitterly, that there were lots of things that Rose didn't know…

As for Rose…well it wasn't just sorrow that she'd had to comfort-eat and cry out of her system; there was a fair bit of regret and guilt, too at how she'd treated Mickey, how things had been left between them. Things she should have said and done.

Of all things, she'd realised, with a pang, as she drifted through his abandoned flat, that during the time in which he'd been on the TARDIS, she'd never once played 'Rock, Paper Scissors' with him over whose turn it was to make the tea, and that was something they'd done all the time before she'd started traveling with the Doctor. Then again, he'd long ago stopped pulling her hair by way of greeting, and he'd done that since they were children.

It wasn't just Mickey she'd cried at and for, either; there had still been small chasms of hurt left over that had been hurriedly tidied away from the Doctor changing, from Jack…Sarah-Jane…Madame de Pompadour, and their ordeal in the parallel universe had simply brought it crashing to a head. Saying that, it had also enabled her to finally let it all go. A Mickey-and-the-Parallel-World-shaped turning point…

Now, though seemed as good enough a time as ever to tell Jackie about her trip back to Ancient Rome, if she was interested. Jackie had already brought the subject up, anyway. Whilst making another round of tea, she'd mentioned that she'd had to make up some rubbish about abstract art when the man who'd come round to look at the central heating had been a bit too observant for his own good.

"That photo you took of that Lay-whatsit planet," Jackie had chattered, not hearing Rose's correction of 'Laylora', as she'd set the kettle away and rinsed a teaspoon under the tap. "I had to tell 'im it was from the Seychelles, and _that_ one from that planet with the orange sand,' she vaguely pointed in the direction of the cupboard door, where she'd tacked up all of Rose's photos and postcards.

'On the back you wrote about that fish-man stealing your shoe, yeah? Well, I said it was a concept image from an unreleased Bowie album, and _that_ one of you all trussed up as a goddess…said Dennis had fiddled around with it on that _Photoshop_ lark of his."

Jackie had paused for a breath, slopping milk in their rinsed-out mugs, that still bore faint traces of brown around the rim, before carrying on, whilst Rose had sat at the kitchen table with one leg tucked up under her, a wide smile stretching her cheeks as she listened.

"He must've thought I was a right sad baggage, but then _he_ couldn't have said anything, could he? Because he was wearing white socks and black shoes and _that_ my girl, is _only_ acceptable if you're-,"

"John Travolta!" Rose had finished for her, with a cringe, at the same time as Jackie had said 'Danny Zuko', slapping her palm on the bench to emphasize her point.

Both of them had laughed girlishly at their similar trains of thought, and Jackie had joined her at the table, producing a packet of _Jammy Dodgers_ from somewhere or other to munch on whilst Rose told her about a missing boy and a slave called Vanessa.

Tactfully, Rose had so far managed to avoid that she'd actually been turned into a stone statue herself for a little while, whilst in Rome, otherwise her mum's high-pitched shrieking would have shattered the windows and the possibility of going anywhere further than the end of the street with the Doctor would be definitely off-limits.

The watered-down story she'd spoon-fed Jackie sounded as if they'd simply gone back to Ancient Rome, met a girl from the future, and whilst they were there, the Doctor had spontaneously decided to make a statue of her. Thankfully, Jackie had been more taken aback with the revelation of the artist's identity than concerned with the whys and wherefores.

"He's made you very beautiful," Jackie decided at last, standing half-risen from the table to see the photograph better as Rose finished her tale. As if she didn't smile fondly at it every time she opened the cupboard to get the teabags out.

She'd been looking from the photo to Rose every so often, comparing them, looking for any faults, like playing spot-the-difference, whilst Rose had been talking, head tilted on the side.

At this, Rose's eyes widened slightly in alarm and she raised her eyebrows at her before making a small noise of disbelief. She shook her head.

"Nah, he's just good at sculpting," she insisted loyally.

Jackie tapped her thumb against the handle of her mug, her thumb-ring making a _chinking _noise, looking entirely unconvinced.

Rose smiled, embarrassed, down at her own mug. It was pale yellow with tiny forget-me-nots in two different shades of blue swirling around the handle and up towards the rim, like a delicate climbing vine. She'd adopted it as 'her' cup, when she was about five, because the colour and pattern was more or less identical to a thin, floaty summer dress that her mum had bought for her in the _Next_ sale to wear to Keisha's fifth birthday party.

Ah, that birthday party. Running riot on the soft-play at the leisure centre in the stifling heat because there was no air conditioning, sitting down to eat tiny hot-dogs, pink party rings and those smelly white pickled onions that no one ever touched with a red face and a sweaty fringe…

She loved being home. Loved this kitchen.

The citrus-soap suds sitting in the sink from the washing-up; the smell of fresh washing powder and fabric conditioner that hung in the air from the last washing load; the washing machine that was making a racket as it finished its cycle, vibrating slightly in the corner; the wobbly table and ever-spotless linoleum with a chip in it from when her mum had dropped the iron; the frayed tea towel with the potted plants on that was scrunched between the handles of the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink.

Most of all, though, her mum. The slightly-too-big jeans that she had to keep on hitching up, because she'd bought them during a fat-phase a couple of years ago; her _Primark_ tops and immaculate hair. Her mum always wore exactly what she wanted; didn't see the point in wearing anything out of the ordinary; she dressed for herself and not her clients; worked from home, dressed to stay in.

Her make-up though, was another thing entirely. She could be dressed like a right slob, yet still have caked-on foundation and elaborately shaded eye-shadow.

Rose used to love watching her 'put her face on' as her mum called it, when she was little. She'd lie on her stomach across her mum's bed and play with her blusher brushes, bronzing beads and lipstick as her mum sat in front of her dressing table. It was no surprise then, really, that Rose by-passed the gentle breaking-in period of using tinted lip balm and clear mascara, and was wearing serious make-up by the time she was thirteen.

There was just _something_ about sitting across the table from her mum, with cups of after-dinner tea between them. It made her feel warm and relaxed.

They always used to have a cup of tea together when Rose came home from work; sometimes Jackie would have a client and Rose would join them through in the living room, perching on the arm of the settee, or Jackie would be flicking through the T.V magazine or something, and they'd catch up before Rose would head out somewhere with Mickey…the pub, Mickey's flat, the cinema, the park and well…that was it, really. Rose frowned as she thought about how she felt, what was it? Safe and content, here with her mum.

Not that…she wasn't happy with the Doctor, _traveling_ with the Doctor, she meant, because she was, of course she was; so, _so_ happy that she honestly couldn't put it into words; horrible incidents like today were just one of those things, but it was a different _kind_ of happy. Different kind of _safe_, too.

A lot of the time, she wasn't safe and out of harm's way when she was with the Doctor, and that was one of the things that scared her mum most of all, she knew that, but she knew, she _believed_ that somehow or other, no matter what might happen to them in the meantime, the Doctor would always get them alive, if a little shaken, back to the TARDIS.

He'd always save them, save _her_, so that she felt that…if he was there, at her side, his fingers wrapped around hers, then nothing, _nothing_ in the entire universe could ever truly hurt her.

She couldn't put her finger on exactly why; it was just the sort of _presence_ he had, something that sparkled in his eyes as he grinned at her, or shouted at a head-case alien, hackles raised. He was the Doctor.

Safety with her mum was another thing entirely. It was creeping into her room in the middle of the night after a bad dream when she was little; stumbling home after her first big night out to find her mum had fallen asleep on the settee, whilst trying to wait up for her to make sure she'd had a nice night; it was the large bucket and bottle of water that were waiting on her bedside table after all her nights out following that.

Knowing that there was absolutely nothing that she could ever do that would make her mum think any less of her. She could cause a paradox the size of Wales (well, hopefully she _wouldn't_) and her mum would just shout at her for a bit and call her a daft cow, but ultimately, there was nothing that her mum wouldn't forgive her for. Now, that thought was as shaming as it was reassuring.

The Doctor's forgiveness…she wasn't so sure about, and to be perfectly honest she didn't want to have to find out, really. Sometimes, and she knew it was probably selfish, but it was sometimes so easy to forget, well no, not forget but _overlook_ the fact that he wasn't human.

Beneath the geeky charm, the close hugs; kind brown eyes and non-stop gob was an ancient alien. She'd seen him in full-blown, powerful Time Lord mode; watched from the sidelines as he judged, told off and tried to rehabilitate races she'd never even heard of, and it always made her feel so inadequately human and ordinary.

So small and timid. She didn't want to have to experience the Oncoming Storm directed at _her_, thank you.

That was it, though, wasn't it? The contrast of her mum and the Doctor. Her old life and her new one. One comfortable, the other exhilarating. She loved both; it was as simple and as impossible as that.

Rose frowned, looking down at the slivers of the sticky, black chargrilled bits from her sausages on her otherwise clear plate. It was a good job her prospective future was in flux and 'as changing as the weather' according to the Doctor.

What was the point in stressing about how her life was going to end up when, even if she _were_ able to make a decision, circumstances would probably change within the resulting 24 hours, anyway?

She got to her feet, picking up her mum's plate as well as her own and took them over to the sink, her stomach feeling pleasantly full. 'Dinner was _gorgeous_, Mum, thanks.'

She began to re-fill the sink with hot, soapy water, but not before crossing back over to the table to press a quick kiss of appreciation on Jackie's cheek.

'Oh well, I got the sausages out of the packet _myself_,' joked Jackie, with mock-pride. 'That Jamie Oliver can eat his heart out.'

'Definitely,' answered Rose with a smile. She sighed, the smile falling off her face as she caught sight of her reflection in the window above the sink and rolled her eyes at the state of herself.

No make-up; the spots on blemishes on her face might as well have been neon and flashing, they were that noticeable and she was clad in her comfiest tracksuit with her towel-turban was still perched on her head. Attractive…

'Pack it in. You look fine,' came Jackie's voice from just behind her.

Rose spun around, a dishcloth in her hand to see her mum leaning against the table with her arms folded, a long-suffering look on her face. 'Pack what in?'

'Picking faults with yourself,' said Jackie shortly, coming over to join Rose at the sink and pulling a tea towel from the cupboard door-handle. 'I can see you doing it. Any minute now you're going to complain about your forehead being shiny or your nose having a miniscule blackhead on it or something.'

'I just noticed I've got acne on my head, that's all,' admitted Rose, but she couldn't help but laugh. Her mum really did know her far too well.

Still, it was nice to have someone there to shoot down her insecurities-it was what her mum did so well, after all. She could look a right mess and her mum would still tell her she was beautiful.

Jackie merely tutted and raised her eyes to the heavens. They worked in a comfortable silence; Rose washing the pans, plates and utensils that had been used for dinner and Jackie drying them. It was such an ordinary, menial task but Rose loved it.

She was thrilled at the familiarity and the homely, domestic simplicity of it all. Except it had become out-of-the-ordinary, hadn't it? The only reason she was enjoying it was because she hadn't had to do it in such a long time. Rose Tyler, enjoying doing the dishes…well there was a first time for everything, she reasoned.

Within another ten minutes, the kitchen was back to being spotless, and Rose was sat in a hard-backed chair in the living room having her hair combed. Well combed…pulled-out, with her mum, what was the difference?

'Ow,' grumbled Rose, frowning as Jackie attacked the tangles and knots in her damp hair. '_Mum_!'

'Shh,' she ordered, looking down at her, sternly. 'Don't start that again, madam. I don't know _how_ you always manage to end up with hair like a bird's nest.'

'Probably because my hairdresser doesn't know the meaning of the word 'gentle' when she washes my hair,' muttered Rose under her breath, mutinously.

Jackie ignored her and carried on combing Rose's hair, though admittedly with slightly less force. When she was seemingly satisfied that she was finished she prodded Rose in the shoulder with her comb.

'Shall I just give you a trim, then, sweetheart?' she asked, coming to stand on Rose's right-hand side with her hands on her hips, one perfectly drawn-on eyebrow raised at her.

Rose, who had been daydreaming, staring out of the window at the darkening, early-evening sky, snapped her eyes back to her mum and shrugged.

'Yeah, please. Just whatever you think needs doing, really.' she answered, smiling at her. 'Seriously though, Mum, thanks for doing this.'

Jackie waved her hand about, flippantly, nearly dropping her comb as she did so. 'Oh, like I _mind_,' she said, as if Rose was being silly.

She ran her fingers through the dark brass-coloured layers of Rose's wet hair and clipped it up into sections. 'I'll have to take a good half an inch off, though. Your ends are dreadful,' she reminded her with a small sigh.

'Yeah, that's ok,' said Rose, brightly. 'I trust you,'

She shuffled backwards so that she was sat up completely straight and tried not to move her head. She could feel the cold metal of her mum's scissors against her head; feel the plastic teeth of the comb scraping her scalp as she set to work. She listened to the scissors clicking away quietly beside her ear and let her eyes roam around the living room, trying to see what, if anything had changed since she was last here.

Same carpet, she noted, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth thinking about how the Doctor had accused Jackie of getting a new one to distract her from giving Rose a Mother's Inquisition.

The same fireplace, same TV, same _Marie Claire_ magazines piled up on the coffee table, though probably more recent editions. It was as if time had stood still whilst she had been away, as if her mum's life didn't change, didn't evolve. Like a museum or a shrine…just waiting for Rose to come back.

'So then,' said Jackie in her best hairdresser's patter, once her combing and _snipping_ had settled into a natural rhythm so that she was doing it almost organically.

'Have you been anywhere nice on holiday recently?'

Even before the words had left her mouth, Rose could tell that her mum was trying to hold back a laugh. She'd said it with a massive smile on her face, her voice lilting up at the end. Rose tittered obligingly, dragging her lip through her teeth and rolling her eyes.

Jackie giggled, like a naughty school, far too pleased with herself and her daft sense of humor for her own good. This only made Rose start to laugh properly…then Jackie joined in and Rose found herself quite unable to control her girly hoots of laughter whilst her mum cackled and cackled like a peroxide-chav witch, her scissors dangling loosely from her fingers, leaning against the back of Rose's chair for support…

For the first time in a very long while, two sets of laughter bounced off the walls and filled the living room, just like old times.

Two voices. Not just one.

At last, the flat didn't feel so desperately empty and quiet.


	12. Chapter 12

Sherbet Fountain:

Back in time for Breakfast

**Disclaimer: **Everything is property of the BBC. I own no characters, trademarks, related merchandise or shoes.

**Author's Note:** Confession time. I've been MIA from the Whoniverse for a while. Studying and boys sort of took over and whilst I _did_ watch the Series' with the Ponds I didn't get as thoroughly into it. However, the news about Billie and David coming back reignited the Doctor/Rose love and well...I'm back! Can I stay?

* * *

Pale, winter sunlight was filtering through a crack in her curtains filling her bedroom with a hazy sort of glow. Rose frowned at it, awake but did not open her eyes. The pillow was thinner than she was used to, too and whatever kind of duvet she was wrapped up in felt bobbly; worn rough with age and use.

She lay completely still, listening. She couldn't hear the steady _humm _of the TARDIS murmuring away all around her. It was quiet. She could make out the clanking and banging of a really old central-heating system clunking into life inside a wall somewhere behind her.

Still feeling half-asleep she opened her eyes a fraction and groggily took in her surroundings before closing her eyes again.

The first thing her eyes had focused on was a small plaque with _Happy 18__th__ Birthday! _written on it in pink diamantés clutched between the furry paws of a mohair teddy bear, sitting on her bedside table. It was beside a handful of hair grips, an empty packet of _Polos_ and a framed photograph of her parents on their wedding day.

Ah yes, the Doctor had left her at home with her mum. She was in her old bedroom.

Everything came back to her in a torrent of images as her mind played catch-up. She saw the little-girl magazines in a 90's paper shop; a plastic lunch box sinking beneath the surface of an algae-strewn duck pond; her younger self crying and cowering beneath a layer of sherbet; her kindly childhood neighbour waving a dishcloth about and the Doctor; the Doctor picking her up and hugging her close just to get her to shut up...

Now she was definitely awake.

Poking a crust of sleep from out of the inner corner of her eye, she got out of bed and almost immediately regretted it. Goosebumps crept up her arms and she began to shiver at the chill, her jaw quivering. It had always been freezing in this flat before the heating kicked in. Even then it was draughty and Jackie used to roll up towels and wedge them in the gap between the doors and the floor.

Deciding that her slightly crumpled hoody that she had left in a heap on her floor would do as a dressing gown, she pulled it on and headed in the direction of the kitchen, following the smell of toast and instant coffee.

"Morning, sweetheart, " Jackie said cheerfully as Rose entered the kitchen, burrowing her chin into the neck of her hoody for warmth. Jackie herself was stood in front of the open oven door, using it as a heater.

"What time is it?" asked Rose, yawning, making a beeline for the kettle.

"Just gone ten. D'you fancy a bacon sandwich? Sausage sandwich? I could do some eggy bread?" she offered hopefully.

Rose clicked on the kettle and leaned against the bench, sleepily. She was trying to work out whether she felt hungry or not. It always took her at least half an hour for her to feel even vaguely human in the morning and the thought of food made her feel slightly nauseous.

"I'm...going to stick to tea at the minute, Mum. Thanks."

"Did you sleep all right, then? You looked like you needed it," remarked Jackie, reproachfully as she pulled her cardigan tighter across her chest and crossed her arms. "Nothing like your own bed, though, is there?"

Rose made her tea, blinking to try and wake herself up as she poured boiling water in the kettle.

"Yeahhh, it was fine," she replied. She could tell that she still sounded half-asleep and really dopey.

Jackie shook her head at her in amusement.

"Go on, sit down, drink your tea and I promise I won't talk to you till you're actually functioning."

Rose smiled placidly, then slumped down at the table and buried her head in her arms.

She didn't look up, even as she heard Jackie take the seat opposite her, clattering a plate down on the table and heard the crisp scraping of what could only be her buttering her toast and cutting it into triangles.

In fact, it took a good five minutes before she resurfaced to take a cautionary sip of her still-too hot tea and then another five minutes until she finally felt awake enough to hold a conversation.

"This tea tastes weird," she announced at last, wrinkling her nose and waggling her tongue at it in distaste. "You changed the tea bags?"

"No," answered Jackie distractedly, ruffling the paper as she turned a page. "You're probably just used to space station filtered water or whatever he has on that TARDIS. You know, like when you went to the Lake District with school and you said the water was funny up there?"

She nodded, impressively at Rose, as if that proved her theory and went back to what she was reading.

From what Rose could see, it looked like the free local rag. It was more adverts for second-hand cars and houses for sale than actual stories but still, Jackie liked the problem pages and the horoscopes.

"Listen to this," Jackie read aloud, with a snort of disbelief. "'I lost 10 stone and now my husband doesn't fancy me.' Poor thing. All that hard work and he's not even interested."

Rose wasn't listening. She was leaning forward, reading the article facing her, on the back of the story that Jackie was holding up. A story about a _Blockbuster_ break-in and the names of the men behind it who had been arrested. She had recognised their names. How could she not? She had been standing in front of them less than twelve hours before. Their scruffy, youthful faces were still fresh in her mind's eye. She could almost still smell musty algae and sherbet. She felt her face redden and suddenly she didn't feel chilly and sleepy any more.

She felt hot and uncomfortable, as if the air in the kitchen had turned cloying and damply warm, like when you first walk into a leisure centre.

"Give me a look at that paper," she said, in a small, almost croaky voice.

Jackie, looked up at her, puzzled, then her eyes widened in horror as she flipped the paper over and clearly recognised the article that Rose was referring to.

"Oh Rose...no. I meant to rip it out, yesterday but then you and the Doctor arrived and I..." she babbled, holding the article protectively against her chest.

"Just _pass_ it here, Mum," ordered Rose, firmly, talking over Jackie.

Her mum stared back at her, looking unsure. She hadn't even noticed that she was now resting her elbow on her used plate, smearing greasy butter and toast crumbs all over her sleeve.

"I didn't want you to see it and get upset," protested Jackie.

"I'm not upset," said Rose calmly. "I just want to read it, that's all."

Sighing, Jackie looked unhappily at the ceiling and slid the article across the table at Rose.

Rose scanned it carefully, her hair falling into her eyes as she pored over the article, reading it twice just to make sure she hadn't missed anything.

"_New _evidence," she quoted aloud, chewing her lip, thoughtfully. "He wouldn't...would he? Course he would," she muttered to herself.

There was nothing to suggest that anything strange or out-of-the-ordinary had taken place and had it been any other petty criminals, then she wouldn't have given it a second thought.

Evidence is evidence. They could do all sorts these days; finger prints, foot prints, facial recognition. The only thing that made her think that the Doctor had poked his not exactly tiny nose into things and might have been indirectly responsible for those boys, well _men, _now, being arrested is that she _knew_ him.

She had seen the way he looked at her as he had carried her younger self up the stairs to her flat; a blazing, almost possessive look that was both pride and affection and just a hint of something unknown.

Yeah, he would definitely have done it.

She shook her head, feeling simultaneously awed and touched. She took a gulp of tea to see if it would stop her mind from racing.

"I thought he was just going to go back in time and explode sherbet over them or something," she confessed, with a stunned giggle.

Her mum blinked at her.

"Who...the Doctor?" asked Jackie, her voice going slightly high-pitched in confusion. "Explode sherbet over who?"

"_This_ lot," Rose said impatiently, shaking the paper to show who she was referring to. "Who used to pick on me when I was little."

She stared down in distaste at the mugshot of Daniel Todd, taken at his last arrest that they had printed with the article. He looked older than her by at least a decade; he could be mistaken as being in his late thirties. His face was bloated and unshaven; his hair was lank and the bored, arrogant look in his eyes was the same as ever. He looked like had forgotten how to smile.

"God, he's a mess," Rose murmured to herself. "A proper mess."

She glanced up at Jackie, half-expecting her to join in on her disbelief but one look at her 'I'm out of the loop and I don't like it' expression told her that she'd be far better off if she told her what on earth was going on.

Rose gave a tight-lipped smile and pursed her lips; the picture of a guilty child being caught doing something naughty with no possible way of talking herself out of it.

"I think I'd better tell you where me and the Doctor were yesterday," she admitted, taking another sip of tea and grimacing as it burnt its way down her throat.

Jackie raised her eyebrows at her, looking both stern and concerned. Classic Jackie Tyler.

"Well that would be a start Rose, yeah," she said flatly, her eyes flashing in warning.

She crossed her arms under her chest and jutted her chin out, waiting for an explanation. Last time she had seen her mum pull _this_ face was when she had accidentally stayed away for an entire year with the Doctor.

She rapped on the table. "Come on then. Out with it."

So, Rose took a large gulp of tea to help her get the higgeldy-piggeldy events into some sort of order in her head and told her everything.

She started at the beginning; how it had all started with a ruined cocktail dress and singing _Spice Girls _at three in the morning; about seeing her younger self at the paper shop and realising what day they had landed in. She told her about June from next door and her dishcloth and pretending to be a police officer. She told her about how they had walked past the boys and how there had been a mini explosion a few seconds later and that they had ended up in a sherbet-strewn heap on the cobbled ground.

She talked and talked for half an hour, stumbling over certain bits, screwing the sleeves of her hoody up into her fists when she got to the bit about seeing her younger self being attacked.

She didn't cry, though. She told her mum everything in a nervous sort of soliloquy, looking down at the table at all the parts that were particularly painful to talk about.

Jackie, to her credit didn't interrupt her as Rose had half-feared she might. She just let her carry on, her face contorting seamlessly from rage to compassion every other second.

Eventually, when Rose had finished, Jackie sniffed, wiped her sleeve over her eyes, got up from the table and started to pull pans and mixing bowls out of the cupboards, making so much noise that it sounded like a little kitchen-war zone.

"Mum, what are you _doing_?"

Rose watched her rip open a packet of bacon with so much force that a slimy rasher went flying into the sink with a wet splat. "It's already dead, you know," she pointed out as an after-thought.

"I'm making something to eat for the Doctor," she said shortly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "'Coz by the sound of it the poor man hasn't had anything since that party you were at. He'll be starving, bless him."

She started cracking eggs into a large mixing bowl, slopping in the milk and scraping in a large mound of butter.

"What was it like?" she asked, her voice full of wonder. "Seeing yourself right in front of you. Was it not weird?"

Rose snorted. She wasn't that much of a seasoned time-traveller, that she was used to seeing herself, thank you.

"Yeah! Course it was!" she exclaimed, laughing. "It was like...seeing a video of yourself from years ago but like a live version! It was me. But not me, if that makes sense?"

Jackie nodded and then suddenly went very quiet. Rose watched her face fall and her eyes grow pensive and subdued.

"We never really talked about what you went through with those boys, did we?" she asked almost inaudibly, her back to Rose as she stirred scrambled eggs in a pan. The atmosphere between them changed immediately.

"Nah, not really," mumbled Rose, staring into her cup of tea, She knew why, of course. Even talking about it now felt jarringly uncomfortable.

Jackie busied herself with frying bacon and eggy bread for the next couple of minutes before continuing.

"I used to feel like I had let you down," she admitted, sadly. "I couldn't do anything at all to make them stop. Looks like the Doctor could, though," she said in a falsely bright voice with a very forced laugh to show that she was trying to make light of it.

Rose froze. She hadn't thought about this. She had felt wracked with guilt yesterday, when she had heard that her mum had blamed herself all those years ago. It hadn't occurred to her that telling her all of this might make her feel so inadequate and surplus to requirement.

"Mum," she started, her voice pained, half-rising from the table. She didn't know whether to go over an comfort her or to let her finish saying what was on her mind.

"No, it's all right, Rose," said Jackie quickly, spinning around and pointing her wooden spoon at her. She smiled bravely but her eyes were just a fraction too shiny.

"It's all right, I get it," she reassured her. "It's just...I'm your Mum," she insisted, forcefully, her mouth trembling in annoyance. "It was meant to be _my _job. Not his! Not all the way back then!"

She sighed and turned back to the sizzling bacon and egg-soaked bread, which was beginning to smell wonderful.

Rose gave her a few minutes to compose herself before she shuffled over to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

"He's not replacing you," she said softly, touching her head to her mum's own elaborate up-do. The last thing on Earth she would ever want to do is upset her mum. "I still need you," she promised her.

Jackie laughed.

"Oh, _yeah,_" she said, in a tone that suggested that she clearly didn't believe her. "To do your washing and your hair, maybe!" she joked, snapping back to her usual, bubbly self.

"No! Mum-"

"Does he like mushrooms? Start doing him some mushrooms," Jackie ordered, changing the subject and thrusting a small carton of milky-white mushrooms at Rose. "Come on, Nigella."

Rose did as she was told and started slicing a handful of mushrooms as best she could with a knife that was about as sharp as her front door key.

"I think he's just a big softie," said Jackie, out of nowhere, lifting a golden, thick slice of spongy eggy-bread out of the pan and onto a plate layered with kitchen roll. "And he can't do what normal blokes do because let's face it, Rose, he wanders around _licking_ stuff. He's not a normal bloke. So he has to find his own little way of doing it."

Rose slowly stopped chopping and replayed what her mum had just said in her head. Nope. She still didn't get it.

"What are you on about?" she asked, putting her knife down and frowning at her mum.

Jackie, who was still unloading glistening slices of eggy bread onto a plate, gesticulated wildly, shrugging.

"Well, you know...!" she replied, getting herself all worked up as she tried to articulate what she meant. "Any other bloke would send flowers. Buy you jewellery, take you out to a fancy restaurant. But him? He sculpts a statue of you and goes back into 1997 to sort out your childhood bullies!"

Rose felt her face grow very hot, again. She stared down at a wonky piece of mushroom as her tummy gave an uncomfortable clench. She had that old, teenage feeling of when one of your mates accuses you of fancying someone and you deny it even though it's painfully true.

"It's not like that, Mum," she stammered.

Jackie stopped what she was doing and looked at her, shrewdly.

"Oh, is it not?" she asked sarcastically. "Are you having a laugh, Rose? All of that, 'he's not my boyfriend, he's much more important' stuff you came out with...you're not telling me you _don't_ have feelings for him?!" she teased her, smiling knowingly at her.

Rose rolled her eyes, feeling sixteen again. She didn't have to say anything; her beetroot-red face gave everything away. But it was far too early in the day to be having this conversation, anyway.

She finished chopping and pushed the small pile of neatly diced mushrooms across to Jackie as she thought about how she was going to reply.

"No, it's just...he did all of that with Daniel Todd because of who he is, Mum. He can't bear to see someone suffering and not do anything about it," she insisted, feeling like she was giving a well-rehearsed, tired speech. "He's just... like that. It has nothing to do with me."

As soon as she heard those words coming out of her mouth she cringed inwardly at how glum and defeated she sounded and immediately regretted saying them.

Not because they weren't true, but because she wanted so much for the Doctor to prove that they weren't true. And she knew he never would.

"Is that what you think?" mused Jackie, tipping the mushrooms into a separate pan.

When Rose merely shrugged and didn't answer, Jackie shook her head at her.

"If that's the case, then you're both as bad as each other," she tutted fondly. "I thought you had more sense, my love! I don't know..."she muttered to herself.

Rose opened her mouth to reply but Jackie shushed her, standing very still.

"Sh sh sh sh shh!" she hushed, waving at her to be quiet, raising a finger to her lips. Her mouth fell open in concentration and her eyes darted from side-to-side as if she were straining to hear something.

"Did you hear that?" she whispered, frantically turning the hob down so that she could hear over the sound of the sizzling pans.

Rose listened but all she could hear was the gentle hissing of the pans on low-heat and a police siren somewhere fairly far in the distance.

"Hear what? Mum?"

But Jackie was already pushing her in the direction of the kitchen door. "Go and get dressed. Hurry up," she told her, patting her on the backside to chivvy her along. "Your hair's going to smell like a greasy spoon with all this frying. Go on."

Feeling remarkably like a child who had been sent to her bedroom for scribbling on the wallpaper in felt-tip, Rose didn't pay her mum any attention and trudged over to join her at the kitchen window.

Jackie was standing, holding the net blinds over her head so she could see out and rubbing her sleeve over the pane to wipe away the condensation. "Look!" she breathed triumphantly after a moment's search. "There!"

Rose leaned in close to see where she was pointing, her face almost touching the glass.

"What am I meant to be looki-" she trailed off, the words dying in her throat. Because she could see it, too. A few streets away, behind the alleys full of wheelie bins and junk, beside the garages, she spotted the corner of a very blue wooden phone box. It definitely hadn't been there two minutes before.

He was back.

"That's _reserved_ parking, too" pointed out Jackie, mutinously, raising her eyes to the heavens.

She elbowed Rose, "He'll end up with a parking fine, you know. Just you watch," she told her, aghast. "Does he think he can just park that thing wherever he wants?"

Rose tittered at her mum's scandalised muttering but then, as she stared happily at the TARDIS, waiting for any signs of movement, her smile grew wider so that it was almost splitting her face in two, her eyes crinkling.

"Yeah," she replied honestly, with a laugh, sticking her tongue through her teeth. "That's exactly what he thinks."

She took one last look out of the misted-over window and scarpered out of the kitchen to get changed, giggling to herself as she heard her Mum start banging on the glass.

"RESERVED parking," she heard her shouting. "You'll. Have. To. Move. It."

She decided she wouldn't bother telling her that he wouldn't be able to hear.


End file.
